


Spike the Bunny Slayer

by wolf_shadoe



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2020-03-09 07:19:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 36,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18912199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolf_shadoe/pseuds/wolf_shadoe
Summary: They were furry, and they were fierce. Hoppy legs, twitchy little noses… a penchant for hamstringing people.The apocalypse came… and it was bunnies.Post-Tabula, pre-Smashed, bunnies appear in Sunnydale to throw things off the canon path. It's the angsty crackfic-that-isn't, featuring a magic tree, many rabbits, two lost people, and a lot of desert. Also, many rabbits.





	1. The Invasion

**Author's Note:**

> My muse kind of broke and ran away into the hectic writing of this all week. And I'm really not sure how to describe the results 😜  
> Many thanks to my fantastical amazing beta Micrindle23 for keeping up with the crazy ;)  
> Credit to Spindlekitten for the title which prompted this strange thing 💙  
> Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

 

 

 

** + **

 

They were furry, and they were fierce. Hoppy legs, twitchy little noses… a penchant for hamstringing people. 

The apocalypse came… and it was bunnies. 

  
  


She'd almost been amused by the ridiculousness of the first one. A flash of white fur, then a pair of teeth had sunk into the edge of one sole of her knee-high black boots. An instinctive reactionary kick of her foot had flung it into the nearest headstone with a dull crunch, and she'd been mortified as the fluffy little body fell loosely to the ground. Crouching over it, she frowned sadly and wondered what on earth had possessed a  _ rabbit  _ to attack her. That led to an image of some kind of crazed stage magician with a hypnotic pocket watch and evil moustache, and suspicion pushed away the pity.

Then she turned the little body over with her toe - because, there's a thought, maybe it was simply rabid, and not supernatural at all. A rabid rabbit. But when its mouth became visible with a sheared-off chunk of her solid rubber heel still gripped in it, she gave up that hope. 

She grimaced at her boot, then looked around for something to pick up the rabbit with. Where was a shovel when you needed one? In the end, she slipped off her hair tie and looped it over one of the thing's rear feet before gingerly lifting it by the elastic. Then, she set off to show-

-Giles. She'd forgotten again. He had gone.

How was she supposed to ‘ _ stand alone’ _ if evil bunnies were ripping off bits of her footwear? Mouthfuls of her black sole. A deranged little squeak slipped out between her teeth at the not-joke.

Right. Get a grip. She looked at her fingers on the rabbit's handle and stifled another disturbing sound, then set off for The Magic Box. 

  
  


Two blocks on, a snickering laugh came up behind her. She stopped walking and pouted angrily at the dark sky; this was just what she needed right now. Everything had gone weird between them since she'd kissed him, tucked away in the shadows of the Bronze. (There was that other time, too, but that was the just the curtain closure of the mystical musical and therefore very much not her fault.) Things felt tense between them now; dangerously over-tightened, naked like a raw wound with the bandage ripped away. His hunger had reached down inside of her with his tongue in that corner by the stairs, and something in her had bitten in response. He was the wolf on her trail, and she couldn't seem to shake him. 

She looked down at the rabbit. Maybe if she kicked Spike hard enough into a headstone too he'd finally detach himself from her heels. His body wouldn't leave anything to carry, either. That thought twisted up inside of her into something unnatural and wrong that she didn't dare investigate but couldn't step past. 

By the time he caught up with her she was staring up at the sky with her regular state of numb stasis returning.

“Much as I admire your hunting prowess, I can't see the bit being too impressed by this for dinner. It's still got eyes,” he started, still snickering. “So what’d the poor ittle bunbun do to you?”

“The ‘ittle bunbun’ took a bite out of my favourite boots is what it did,” she said. She rotated the rabbit to display its mouth still gripping the piece of rubber and lifted her foot next to it.

He whistled appreciatively. “So, we off to show the crew, or is it going in the pot as payback?”

“ _ We _ are not going anywhere, Spike.” She tried to sound authoritative, but it came out more of a flat sigh. 

She began walking again. He dropped in beside her so then she did sigh, to no effect. If he noticed that she'd left a space between her left and the garden fences he was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. Besides, she could walk where she wanted, liked having plenty of clear space around her, who was he to judge, anyway?

  
  


She walked into The Magic Box and Anya screamed, leaping back from the counter. Then peered, then broke into a huge smile. Her hands came up to clap excitedly as she called out, “Xander! Get in here! Look what Buffy’s done!” She squealed again and asked, “How did you do it? Did you crush its furry little neck until it popped beneath your fingers? We've  _ got  _ to get the others down here. Xander!”

Buffy looked down at her most-Anya-impressing kill to date, then back to the ex-murderous-demon’s wonderstruck and worshipful face. Then the humour wriggled in, and she smiled a little. At least she could still please someone. 

  
  


** x **

 

Harris objected to the rabbit being allowed to bleed directly onto his donut altar, so now it sat in a ceremonial bowl in the middle of the table. Buffy had raced off to wash her hands as soon as she'd deposited the corpse, which amused him with its hypocrisy - he'd seen her unbothered by having acidic demon blood up to her elbows often enough, and rabbits weren't so different to the chicken she had for dinner, surely. Although, maybe this particular one was. He lurked on the ladder, watching the way Xander tried to calm Anya’s enthusiasm enough to direct it bookwards.

Willow and Dawn arrived. Dawn took one brief horrified look at the fluffy body, then came to perch on a footstool near him.

“She didn't really kill a bunny, did she?” Dawn asked.

“Sure did,” he grinned. “Say goodbye to easter.”

“Was it an  _ evil  _ bunny, at least?”

He shrugged. “Certainly took offense to her choice in footwear. Dunno that I'd call that evil, exactly.”

She was back at the table now, twisting to look at her boot again as Willow asked something. They were a nice set of boots, he decided, on account of her wearing an above-knee skirt to show them off properly. Making an effort, looking like she had things together so everyone could continue ignoring how very much broken she was. Herself included.

There was talking and pointing and passing the buck on who was going to open its mouth for further inspection, but before Buffy had to put aside her assumed squeamishness and get on with it Dawn’s morbid curiosity got the better of her and she moved in for a look. Teeth were inspected, the piece of rubber removed, and Dawn had begun fondling the ears before she caught herself and jerked her hand back. Explorations finished, Buffy turned unexpectedly to him. 

“Does it  _ smell  _ like a rabbit?” she asked. “Of the normal kind.”

“Far as I can tell,” he said. She eyed him speculatively and he saw the next question coming. “I ain't bloody taste testing it, fore you ask. Wouldn't know what rabbit blood's supposed to taste like, in any case.” She made a delicious little face at being preemptively refused, so he turned on the suggestiveness to add, “You wanna skin, gut and cook it however, and I'll try it anyway you like.”

“ _ Urgh, _ ” she said, and turned her back on him again. “So. Barring further information… just a particularly bad-tempered rabbit?” 

Everyone except Anya nodded. Buffy turned to her, face enquiring.

“Not particularly bad-tempered,” she said sullenly. “It’s exactly what you'd expect from one of those creatures.”

“Well, what should we do with it?” Buffy asked the room.

_ Bury it _ hung in the air; uncomfortable topic to broach this year. No one answered. Buffy’s focus had drifted inwards again, face tight as she mentally tripped in the hole the watcher had left. 

He stood and walked over to the table. “I'll bloody take it.” Xander made some predictably douchebaggy comment. Spike shook the rabbit in his direction, effectively shutting him up, then stalked out.

He tossed it in the first open dumpster, and thought no more of it.

  
  


** + **

 

A few days later, Anya rang her in a panic. “Have you seen the news? There's more bunnies!” 

The news, as it turned out, was a ‘dog’ attack - probably a messy vamp. But Anya was insistent, so she promised to check it out. 

This sort of task had become a lot easier of late since she'd saved a local mortician from becoming vampire chow outside his office one night. She left a message, got a call in return, and had her answer. It was bunnies. She called another scoobie meeting. 

Everyone turned pages in books dutifully, but they felt like actors holding props after the director walked off stage. Buffy tried asking Anya once more; Anya insisted rabbits were always like this and always had been, she’d known it. But, yes (reluctantly given), this was the first time she’d ever heard of them  _ revealing  _ it so blatantly. 

Finally giving up on  _ Demonic Animal Possession  _ and its page-after-page of men being taken over by wild boars, Buffy sent everyone home to bed and headed out on patrol to see what could be seen.

In Shady Hills Cemetery she saw a brown one in the distance, and watched through narrowed eyes as it nibbled the grass. Probably thought it was being sneaky, acting all innocent. When she edged her way closer the rabbit froze, thumped a rear foot on the earth in a standard rabbit alarm call, then disappeared down a burrow. 

“Not the brown ones,” he said as he drifted up behind her. 

She pursed her lips, refusing to answer. The feel of him lingering silently just out of sight was infuriating; was he hoping to play the hero, or witness her finally fall? She doubted he could always say for certain anymore. When he finally made his move like this she would put the frustration onto him with stubborn silence or harsh words and before long he'd melt away again, but his presence would linger on the back of her neck. He was like her own private drug pusher, smirking in the shadows with the knowledge that eventually she’d be the one approaching him and asking for one more taste. 

She toed at the hole rabbit had gone down. He emulated her silence, so that eventually she was forced to break it. “What do you mean, not the brown ones?” Her voice sounded embarrassingly churlish even to her own ears; she could imagine the wolfish grin spreading on his face without needing to turn around, and prepared herself for the answering snark.

Instead, he sighed wearily. She looked up to find him watching her foot at the hole, face troubled and kind of… despondent. “The brown ones are just regular rabbits,” he said in a tired monotone. “It's just the other colours.” 

He hadn't even tried to get anything out of her first. “Are you okay?” she asked. Then kicked herself for being sucked into whatever tactic this latest was.

He blinked, and then the smirk appeared, but it was a sad and false attempt, as if he didn’t have the energy to really try. She kept watching until he looked up to meet her eyes at last, and his face softened slightly. “Yeah, I'm fine, Slayer. Come on, show you what I've found.”

She followed him out of the cemetery and the couple of blocks to his own, trying to think of something to say.  _ How about this weather?  _ Everything sounded inane and pointless, so she let the silence sit. 

At his crypt he halted before the door and pointed them out on the grass beside it - seven dead rabbits, black, white, and one that had patches of both. “The first three were attacking shifarn demon earlier, and started eating it after I'd killed it. Next four chased a man down the street into his car. He took off with two flat tires, ran one rabbit over, and the rest tucked into it.”

“Someone was killed by them yesterday,” she added.

“Not surprised. They would've had that shifarn on their own soon enough, took out its hamstrings.”

She'd come across shifarns a few times; they were somewhere between a strong human and a fledgling vamp in strength. “How’d you kill these?”

“Easy as any other rabbit… they don't seem interested in me, either.” He nudged one with his boot. “Taste okay too.”

She looked at him sharply. “You  _ ate  _ one?”

He shrugged. “Thought you wanted to know?” 

She had, but… “You sure you're feeling alright?” 

He gave her a disappointed look. He did seem to have brightened up from earlier, though; whatever had been up with him, it probably wasn't demon bunny blood. “Something else, too,” he said, and motioned her to follow again. 

Up in the woods at the back of the cemetery, he pointed out a dead tree with a hollow cavity in its rotting trunk. She peered inside, and saw nothing abnormal about it. 

“What?” she asked. 

“Wasn't there last week.”

“The hollow?”

“The tree.”

She looked around the base, smoothly disappearing into the leaf litter. “Are you sure?”

He looked at her, expressionless. 

“Alright,” she grumbled. She poked her head inside the tree again, then pulled her jacket close and went to step inside.

Spike’s hand landed on her shoulder, restraining. “Don't.”

She twisted free and turned to face him. “Don't  _ don't _ me.” 

“Don't be an idiot then. Knew your education was lacking, but I'd’ve thought you'd at least seen the Disney version.”

Okay, so maybe he had a point. But she wasn't taking pointers from the moody undead. “There’s no rabbit hole,” she snapped, and turned back to the tree.

His hand landed on her arm this time. She gave him a warning look that travelled from his hand to his face. When he didn't move, she shrugged a shoulder and punched him in the nose. 

Her arm came free as he landed on his arse on the leafy ground. Before she could turn her back on him again he sprung back up with a snarl and backhanded her across the face. Taken by surprise, she hit the ground and had to roll with the fall before bouncing back to her feet. Her scathing comment died on her lips as she registered what she was seeing - Spike, his hands half raised ready to clutch at his head, squinting in confusion and looking pain-free. 

“Your chip-” she said, as if expecting her words to trigger some delayed jolt.

His hands twitched towards his head as his face flickered through a series of emotions too fast for her to catch; it looked like he'd been about to try and fake it, far too late. He looked up at her slowly, eyes wide and slightly panicked. “Buffy…”

“What the fuck have you done to the chip?” she demanded.

Panic gave way to a dark sneer as he straightened up. “Always straight to the worst, isn't it? Can't possibly accept that a man can change.” 

“You’re not a man,” she snapped.

He swiped the back of his hand across a dribble of blood from his nose, then took a step closer to her.

“Don't,” she warned, holding up one finger and resisting the urge to take a step back. 

“Don't  _ don't  _ me,” he mocked, and stepped forward again. 

She swung a fist at him, but this time he was ready and shoved it aside smoothly before punching her in the jaw. It was a weak hit - he half cringed as it connected - and she kicked out as she took it, knocking him back again. 

He hesitated, waiting for the shock that never came. When nothing happened he moved towards her in a stalking semi-circle, limbs sinuous and fight-ready. There was still a layer of fear on his face, mixed in with fragments of hunger and lust, hate and disgust, and all overlaid with a sense of resignation that terrified her. He was about to force an end to their stand still.

“Looks like I have changed,” he said ominously. 

Oh god. She couldn't deal with this too. Before he could move in again, she went for him, feinting with her right hand before smashing him with the left and twisting to run. He caught her foot with one of his and sent her to the ground, and she rolled fast and brought her feet up to kick him away as he dived on top of her. She sprung back to her feet ready to try and bolt again, but as she did there was a blinding flash of yellow light that stunned her enough to fall back on her bottom in the dirt.

She blinked rapidly as the spots faded from her vision and the clearing returned. Before her was the hollow tree. The rest of the forest. Some leaves settling into place. 

“Spike?” she asked in a small voice. 

No one answered. 

 


	2. Down the Bunny Hole

 

 

 

** x **   
  


The flash had been the worst part. A ridiculous jolt of fear that he was falling into the sun; a burnt afterimage on his retinas. That second effect removed any chance of planning a landing before hit the ground with a heavy thud. As soon as he was able to he rolled to the side in case she was about to land on top of him. 

Lying there on his back, blinking up at an opening he couldn’t see but must have been pulled through, he ran the last few seconds back through in his mind to try and make sense of what the fuck had just happened. Punch from her left to his jaw, check. Hooking his foot behind hers and sending her to the ground, check. Diving on her down there, check. And being kicked off… in the direction of that Sodding. Magic. Tree. “Oh, you bloody bitch,” he growled, then dropped his head back on the ground to chuckle dryly. 

When nothing seemed to be happening he sat up slowly, then climbed to his feet and brushed off his jeans as he took stock. He seemed to be in some sort of large cave; a sandy, rocky floor, yellowish rock walls, no scent beyond sand and rock and… rabbit. Of course. At one end there was a gap in the walls, maybe four feet across, and this was where the light was coming in from. He headed towards it and peered out from a few feet away. 

Outside was a sunny desert. More sand, more rocks. Oh, and rabbits. He saw one hopping across the sand; a group of them sat against the edge of a distant rock. He sighed and moved away from the door, then looked around the cave’s interior again and hoped they had nighttimes here.

  
  


** ~~ **

 

“In there,” Buffy said, pointing at a hollow tree. “He must have landed in there, and then there was the flash of light, and then he was not there.”

Willow chewed at her lip. When an upset Buffy had burst into her lonely bedroom in the middle of the night, she'd jumped at the chance to do something distractingly exciting; this wasn't quite what she'd been expecting. She'd already felt around the area for any trace of magic and come up empty; it was starting to look more and more like her friend had made a hasty move and needed someone to help her deny it. “It's not your fault, Buffy. Accidents happen,” she tried. “He shouldn't have surprised you.”

“We were-” Buffy stopped and gulped something down. “Just work out how to make him come back.”

Poor Buffy. This was going to be hard for her to come to terms with. Dawn would blame her; Xander and Anya wouldn't understand. “It'll be okay,” Willow said. “Why don't you go and sit down, and I'll see… what the magic says.” She put a hand on Buffy’s shoulder and nudged her towards a log. 

Buffy moved towards it but didn't sit, pacing in a small circle with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. She stopped suddenly and looked up at Willow. “Thank you. For racing out here. I know you’ve got stuff going on.”

“It'll all be okay,” Willow said again, and began waving her hands around the tree as if feeling for something. She kept her eyes off the ground. 

Inside the tree she thought she did feel a flicker of something, and reconsidered her assessment of Buffy’s guilt. But the flicker faded; she'd probably imagined it. 

“There's nothing here anymore,” she told Buffy. “It must have closed as soon as he fell through. Let's get you home for now.” Buffy looked like arguing. “I'll do some research in the morning, okay?” she added. “But we've left Dawn on her own.” 

Buffy nodded unhappily and came with her, looking back over her shoulder every few steps. 

“We won't tell Dawn,” Willow said. “No need to worry her.” 

  
  


** + **

 

After repeating her promise to hit the books in the morning, Willow had gone back to bed and insisted Buffy should do the same. 

Buffy sat on the edge of her own bed with her chin resting on her hands and watched the clouds moving across the night sky. Willow would figure it out tomorrow. They'd open the flashy tree somehow, Spike would jump out and give them all a tongue lashing for taking so long, and they'd seal it up so no more crazed rabbits could get through. 

Then what? She'd chain him up in the bathtub until she could fix his chip? Tell him to leave town again, so she could pretend ignorance of all the people he ate? Ask him to please not eat the little happy meals, and maybe one day she'd give him another kiss? Oh, and don't tell the others or they'll be reaching for crossbows. Probably best not to mention the chip to them either. Maybe he was better off staying wherever he was. They probably had hot amazonian rabbit slayers there. Ones who were mentally stable and loved the undead. 

Before long she was angry again, ready to lay into him with her tongue and fists for all the kinky rabbit/amazonian sexy times he was sure to be having all while claiming to love her. Not that she wanted him to love her. Urgh, it was such a mess. She needed him to hurry back so they could finish arguing it out. She gave up on sleeping to slip outside and spend the rest of the night hunting for odd-coloured rabbits. 

  
  


At the scooby meeting the following afternoon she quizzed Anya about possible rabbit dimensions; Anya knew nothing and shuddered at the idea. Buffy dotted the rabbit encounters on a map of Sunnydale, and added the one death and two attacks they'd heard of (police were issuing rabies warnings). In the middle of the smattering of dots stood the woods at the back of Restfield, and therefore the hollow tree. 

“That’s got to be where they're coming from,” she told everyone. “It's too much of a coincidence. Someone's sending us rabbits, and they've taken Spike.” Queue uncomfortable looks; what was with everyone today? They didn't hate him that much, did they? “So we need to open the tree, get Spike back, then make it go away.”

“The going away part,” Xander mused. “Would burning it work?” 

They all looked at Willow; Willow shrugged. “Maybe. If it really- we could try that.”

“And the opening it part?”

“I'm… working on it,” she said. 

  
  


Three days after he'd disappeared they were no closer to answers, and the rabbits seemed to have vanished too. Her final count stood at 42, the forty-second one last night's sole find. She'd held it by the scruff and demanded it explain itself -  _ take me to your leader, dammit! -  _ but all it did was writhe around until it managed to sink its teeth into the pad of her thumb, at which point she'd slapped it on to the ground, killing it by mistake. Just call her mistake-girl this week. 

So, no rabbits (yah!), no Spike (no comment), no clues (urgh). 

Today she'd found herself in his crypt, running her fingers across tables and books and lamps, ears pricked for the sound of his feet on the ladder. The place had a cold, dead feeling to it that it never could when he was around. The fridge ticked onto its cooling cycle and made a low hum that sounded loud in the heavy silence, and she thought about how she should buy him some fresh blood when he came back, because his was probably getting old in there and she did need to say sorry somehow. And he needed blood in his fridge, it was what he drank, from little containers. She could buy them at the butcher’s for him and maybe there was some of that herb he liked at the Magic Box or maybe a bottle of Giles’ whiskey left behind somewhere there, because then it would be easy for him to drink the little containers as was habit and it would taste okay. Yes.  


When she got home she'd found the other three huddled in her kitchen, a discussion going on in hushed whispers while Dawn did homework upstairs. She paused at the front door to listen, and didn't need many words to piece together the conclusion: they thought it was both pointless and too dangerous to try to retrieve Spike. Xander thought they should blow up the tree; Willow wanted to put a binding spell on it. And none of them were certain that Spike actually had fallen through a portal.  


She stepped into the room and they all jumped and threw on fake smiles (well, alright, she'd concede that Anya’s had been genuine; the girl thought she was the hero of the millennia right now for destroying the rabbit invasion). “You pulled me out of  _ heaven, _ ” she hissed at them. “Don't tell me one measly little rabbit hole is too difficult.” Willow and Xander hedged and stammered, but she didn't have the energy to keep arguing tonight. She felt as cold and dead as Spike's crypt. “I'm going to bed,” she said, and backed out of the room again. 

She paged through some impossibly confusing book on dimensional portals as she waited for the others to leave for home and bed so she could raid the fridge. The thing was written in that very much not-English English that Giles called  _ Middle English,  _ and combined with her lack of familiarity with the context it may as well have been Swahili. This one didn't even have pictures.  


Her door creaked open to reveal Dawn standing on the threshold. Buffy kept staring at her page blankly. When Dawn didn't speak, she made herself look up and ask, “Did you finish your homework?”

“What’s going on?” Dawn asked, in a darkly suspicious voice.

What had she heard? “Nothing,” said Buffy. “Just, you know, demon of the week, et cetera. Nothing to worry about.”

Dawn just watched her. “You can tell me,” she said at last, and some of the suspicion had faded into sadness. “You can talk to me about things they wouldn't understand.”

She looked at Dawn’s face and felt her lip wobble. “I can't,” she managed, then took a breath. “Go to sleep, Dawnie, it's getting late. Please.” 

With a grumpy look Dawn slunk off, leaving the door open.

The house grew quiet and still. Somewhere down the block a dog barked, once, twice, then was silent. Putting the book down, she dressed in her jacket and slipped a stake into each pocket. 

She wrote Dawn a note - ‘ _I threw Spike through a dimensional portal the other night. I'm sorry I couldn't tell you sooner. I've gone to get him back. Be good. I love you.’_ Tip-toed into her sister's bedroom and set it carefully on the bedside table, taking a moment to look at her properly through the safe wall of sleepingness.   


Then she slunk from the house and down to the cemetery. 

  
  


She stepped inside the hollow tree, then looked around at the walls. Shuffled her feet. Stamped them. “What was I thinking,” she mumbled, then flopped down to sit in the leaf litter. “I miss you,” she whispered. “I  _ need  _ you here, Spike, dammit.” 

She felt like a little forest creature getting ready to hibernate. She'd always thought hibernating sounded fun - being tucked up in a warm little nest full of snacks, with nothing to do but eat and sleep and dream. Now it looked more like an endless cold darkness that just had to be endured. Alone. Her eyes started stinging hotly, and she kicked the inside of the tree in frustration because she was absolutely not about to start  _ crying _ , thank you. As her foot hit the wood something seemed to ripple like a wave, and she froze, staring at it. Reaching out, she felt nothing but solid wood there. She narrowed her eyes at it, then pulled back her hand and drove a punch at the wood. Instead of the rough surface she'd expected, she hit something… squidgy, almost, and a blink of yellow light filled the hollow for a millionth of a second. She smiled. 

She looked back towards his crypt, the street, her home. Now was probably the time to run and get Willow again. She stepped out of the tree and walked to the far side of the clearing. Then she turned, took a deep breath, and ran towards the hollow. 

At the entrance she dove for the rear wall of the hollow, cringing inwards in mid-air as her imagination supplied an image of her with a broken neck bleeding out slowly in the leaves.  _ Stupid imagination, I wouldn't bleed out if I broke my neck. _ Then there was a blinding flash, and a squidging, and she was falling through the air.

  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. Welcome to Rabbitland

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On a dark desert cavefloor, portal wind in my hair...

 

 

** + **

 

Blinded by the flash, the ground hit her like a truck to smash the breath from her chest and probably some skin from her back. She lay there struggling to move her lungs and wondering suddenly if there would even be air to breathe here when she could, spots of yellow flash and seeping blackness filling her vision. Finally she sucked in a shallow gasp, then another, and the onrushing panic began to stall as the blackness retreated. There was oxygen, then. And hey, her neck didn't feel broken either. Yah.

She rolled onto her side and let out a weak groan, closing her eyes. Whatever was waiting to eat her here could damn well keep waiting until the rest of her lungs caught up. 

“Buffy?” said a disbelieving voice. A  _ familiar  _ disbelieving voice. 

She opened her eyes and looked in the direction he'd spoken from. From a ledge several yards above the ground, Spike's face was peering down at her in stunned surprise. She waved a hand at him. “Hi.”

He shook himself, then sprung down to the ground and over to her. “Christ, Slayer, you okay?”

She sat up as he reached her, brushing sand from her arms. “Yeah. Not a fan of the landing.”

He dropped to his knees beside her, hands hovering out before he pulled them back to rest on his lap. “Sorry. If I’d known you were dropping in I’d’ve put out a mattress.”

“There’s mattresses?” she asked, looking around the rocky cave.

“Of a kind,” he said with a snort.

He ran his eyes over her, a quick checking for injuries, then tilted his head as he studied her face. A soft smile spread across his lips, and she felt herself smiling in return, because here he was, and he was okay. He was leaning towards her slowly and she found herself edging towards him, wanting to put her hands on him and maybe taste him and tell him that she'd missed him. Except, he would tease her for it, and want it to mean something, and oh god the chip was gone. “What happened to your hair?” she blurted instead. It sat in grubby curls going every which-way, longer than she'd ever seen it and with more than an inch of dark brown roots showing. 

He ran a hand through it self consciously, trying futilely to smooth it into place as he looked away. “Don't exactly have peroxide in bunny land,” he grumbled. 

“But--” She blinked and looked over him again. Ignoring the hair, there were other changes that hinted at more than the three days she'd been missing him. His jeans had a tear down one thigh, roughly sewn closed with some sort of stiff thread that was itself looking worn. The collar of his t-shirt was ripped, and below it she could see the red line of what must have been a nasty cut. At least a few weeks ago. Also, he was filthy with yellow sand. “How long have you been here?” she asked nervously. 

He snorted again, but it was a harsher sound. “Eighty-six days, if I haven't got muddled anywhere. Just noticed my absence, have you?” He stood up and started pacing tightly. 

“No, I--”  _ Stupid vampire. _ She took a breath and started again. “It's only been three days on my side. Monday night when-- you came here, the following Thursday night now.”

“Oh,” he said, and stopped pacing. He looked like he was struggling to find something to target his emotions at now that she'd yanked away his reason to snark at her. “So where's the cavalry?” he asked eventually. 

“There isn't one,” she admitted. “I, uh, came on my own.” He lifted his eyebrows at her. “I left Dawn a note!” she added quickly. “So they'll know where I've gone.”

“You left…” He spluttered to a stop and dragged his hand through his hair again. “And you've got a brilliant plan to get back, right? Some magic doohickey to let us jump straight home?” He froze and watched her, desperation on his face. 

“Not so much,” she said quietly. “I'm sure Willow will--”

“ _ Fuck! _ ” he shouted, making her jump. “Of all the stupid things, Slayer, this takes the bloody cake. You know where we are, at least? Have some idea you weren't gonna land in a pit of lava, or an ocean, or the bleeding dark side of the moon before you jumped in?” He shook his head, jaw clenched tight, then jabbed a finger at her. “Didn't give it a second’s thought, did you? Just saw a way out and dove for it.” With another curse he swung his fist into the nearest wall, sending bits of sand and rock flying off it.

She waited for the rocks to settle before speaking. “It wasn't like that.”  _ Maybe a little.  _

He sighed and looked at his hand. “Looks a lot like that from here, luv.”

She waited, but he refused to look at her. “Fuck you, Spike,” she growled. “I came because it's my fault you're down here, and I--”  _ missed you.  _ “Wanted to apologise. So I'm sorry, and I'll be leaving now.” She climbed to her feet and stomped across to some sort of strange door-shaped panel leaning against one of the walls. Pushing it aside, she found the expected opening. And froze at the view. 

The desert stretched out as far as she could see, broken only by occasional rocks. A yellow sun filtered down through a dusty sky to land on yellow sand, and she could feel a strange heat simmering out from all of it. She took a step forward to continue her storming-out-on-infuriating-vampire, then stopped again. Outside did not look hospitable. And there were no other insides in sight. She felt him approach slowly behind her. “Where are we?” she asked. 

He sighed. “Welcome to Rabbitland. Population-- well, you've just doubled it.”

Across the expanse of desert everything was motionless. 

“Close the door, ay?” he said quietly. “Sun's nasty here.”

She stepped back and started sliding the panel back into place. The edge of it caught her attention and she stopped to look at the material of it properly; it seemed to be made from some sort of cardboardey stuff with fur on the outside. Skins, she realised. The door was made from stiff dried skins. “Are these…” she asked. 

“Rabbitland,” he replied. “Come on, I'll give you the tour.”

  
  


** x **

 

He watched her from the corner of his eyes as she inspected the main room of the cave, the raised cavern-room he'd dug into one wall, his tally of days and dates, the stacks of rabbit skins that made a bed (and blankets and seat and carpet and everything else). He'd imagined her coming here, of course; dreamed of her stepping through a glowing doorway and extending a hand to lead him home, or of hearing her feet thump down on the cave floor where he'd landed. Now that she was actually here, he could admit that wishful dreams had been all they really were; he'd never actually believed she'd come looking for him. Why should she? Might like to think she enjoyed - or didn't despise - his company sometimes (knew she'd enjoyed the kisses), but only because he happened to be there when she was feeling alone. Girl would never seek him out when she was doing okay.

He sat down on the bed and waited.

“I like what you've done with the place,” she said eventually. 

He chuckled. “Yeah. I was thinking of building a table next, but I don't know what I'd put on it.”

“Where's the hot amazonian rabbit slayers?” she asked, peering around exaggeratedly. 

_ Huh?  _ “What?” he asked when she didn't elaborate. 

She grinned and waved a hand. “Nothing.”

He patted the space next to him and she came and sat down. She felt the edge of the bed tentatively, then delved her fingers into the soft fur. He'd shuffled skins for the mattress and blanket until it was made solely from black rabbits, the white ones going into the rugs on the floor. They were yellowish from the constant sand of course; he should have given bed and rugs a shake this morning. But it was nice. Soft, comfy, everything a bloke needed… the fuck was he kidding. This place sucked, and he'd just been trying to hold onto his sanity by pretending it didn’t. 

“Just how many rabbits did you eat?” she asked. 

“A few,” he said. Then, “They're all there is.” 

She nodded, and didn't ask what else he'd eat if it was available. 

“Buffy…” he started, then stopped. Had run this conversation through so many times in the last three months; still had no idea how to put his vague notions into words. 

“How far out have you explored?” she asked hastily. 

“Two hours or so in each direction,” he said. “Didn't want to get lost.” Didn’t want to miss a miracle by not being here. He’d only gone as far as he had when the rabbits started getting so hard to find; it was taking all night now to find enough to keep him from hunger. And there was nothing out there, he was sure; hadn't seen a bird or a bug or a hair of anything but rabbits anywhere. “The nights feel like earth ones, far as I can measure. Think it’s summer, because it hasn’t rained.”

“Maybe it doesn’t rain here,” she said idly.

He shrugged a shoulder. “Maybe.”

She fiddled with the fur some more. “If you’ve been here three months… we could be waiting a while for them to notice I'm gone.”

“You really didn't have any idea where you were going, did you?”

“Yes I did. Into the tree.” She pouted. 

“ _ Into the tree,” _ he murmured to himself. Christ knows how his sanity was going to endure now with this infuriating bint to nibble at it. 

Her stomach made a faint hungry sound. All of her looked a bit peaky actually, like she'd been running on coffee and dodging sleep. Maybe more than she had been every other week since coming back. 

“Don't suppose you had something to eat before you decided to drop in?” he asked. 

“Kinda didn't,” she said. 

“Hope you like rabbit.” 

She closed her eyes and sighed. 

“I'll cook you dinner,” he said encouragingly. “Don't have to eat them raw. There's a fire spot downstairs.” He'd thought about keeping it lit; something about a fire in a cave seemed instinctively reassuring, even as a flammable creature of the night. Company, perhaps, in the movement of the flames. But rabbits and rabbit dung burnt too fast too keep it up.

“Maybe later,” she said, stifling a yawn. 

He wriggled down to the end of the bed to sit against the wall with his legs crossed, leaving the bulk of it empty for her. Wanted to suggest she lie down, have a nap; knew that would be the surest way to make her get up and pace. “Can’t go looking for any until dark, anyway,” he pointed out, then dropped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. 

She was quiet for a few minutes, then sure enough he heard her inch around and lie down. 

“Spike?” she said after a few minutes. 

He opened his eyes and looked down at her, glowing softly gold against the black furs in the dim light up here. “Yeah?”

“You can lie down too. Over there.” 

Gratitude for her presence here stilled the  _ ‘It's my bloody bed’ _ before it spilt out, and he curled onto his side on the furs to watch her. 

“Spike?” she asked again, big eyes on him. “I really am sorry for kicking you in here. And, you know, that it's been so long.”

“Don't worry about it,” he said. “Wasn't your fault. Been over it for months.” He grinned at her and got a small smile in return. He chose his next words carefully, hoping to avoid the subject neither had dared mention. And couldn't apologise for wanting her to be safe; couldn't blame her for the mindfuck loving his former prey was, either. “I'm sorry too, Slayer. Shouldn't have picked a fight,” he said eventually. 

“No, you really shouldn't have,” she said, more than a hint of irony colouring her tone. “Still, at least we found out where the rabbits came from.” She wriggled deeper into the fur. “I only found one last night - the night before I came here, I mean.”

“They're running out around here,” he told her. “There were thousands at first. Had to dig this out so I could get up out of reach to sleep - they kept digging under the door.” Had a bit of a theory about the rabbits; he'd see what she thought when they went out.

She yawned again, then narrowed her eyes at him. “Don't you dare try to bite me in my sleep.”

He didn't trust his voice not to come out harsh. Or wobbly. So he shook his head solemnly, lips together. She glared at him again, then closed her eyes.

 

 

 


	4. Explorations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warm smell of a rabbit, rising up through the air

 

 

 

** x **

 

Slayer was asleep in his bed.  _ Buffy _ was asleep in his freakin  _ bunny bed _ . She looked so deceptively sweet, curled up like a kitten in her furry nest. Could imagine stroking her head and tickling her chin; rather keep his nose in one piece for now. 

She'd gone out like a light as soon as she closed her eyes, making him wonder just what had been going on in SunnyD to leave her so exhausted. Friction in the scooby ranks, perhaps? Maybe she'd asked Red to try and help retrieve him, only to be underhandedly rejected - witch would have seen this as the perfect event to cover her tracks. Last (week? he supposed it was, from her point of view) he'd warned Willow that he'd guessed the truth about Sweets - there was no way Xander had been responsible for that one. He'd fairly _smelt_ the power bristling on her in reaction, enough to make him rethink the wisdom of confronting her directly. 

Possibility Buffy'd been feeling bad about dropping him here too; whatever she might feel towards him personally, she wasn't the type to ever leave an ally behind. She had sounded genuinely apologetic earlier, which was new and strange. She'd said a lot of things to him over the years, and none of them had ever sounded like _sorry._ _Sorry_ denoted that feelings had been hurt, when he wasn't supposed to be graced with any. 

And then. Then there was the general exhausted lethargy she'd been dragging ever since her return. That one he didn't have the foggiest idea how to properly solve, and it worried him the most. Girl wouldn't let him help and wouldn't let anyone else in; seemed determined to let destiny take her as it wilt. It was plain wrong was what it was, but fuck if he knew what right was. 

Right wasn't her being here, he knew that much. He wanted to wake her up and slap her for diving blindly into a portal; he wanted to grab hold of her legs and beg her not to leave him here without her. God, he'd been so alone. Talking to rocks and rabbits and singing the entire Beatles catalogue backwards whilst trying to decide how best to make a pair of rabbit skin boots. And never, never,  _ never  _ letting himself start asking what the hell he was doing, or going to. 

Or where she was. 

Because if she hadn't come to retrieve him… he'd prayed it was because she simply didn't care to.

He edged closer, closer, needing to drown his lungs in the scent of her, feel the warmth of her radiate onto his skin. Prove to himself that she really was here, and not that worst kind of nightmare where the nightmare is the reality you wake into from an impossibly lovely dream. Finally, he wriggled around to bring his head into the curve of her body and study her face up close. One her hands rested out before her, and slowly he reached out and placed his behind it, brushing against her skin. At the contact he bit his lip to try and stifle the sob that tried to burst free, then held his breath as she twitched in her sleep. She settled back to stillness and he willed himself to relax slowly, letting his hand ease up against hers more firmly. 

  
  


** + **

 

The first thing she realised was that she felt warm and rested in a way she hadn’t since… before. Everything was soft and silky and  _ gentle _ ; tender, even. 

The second thing was that Spike’s head was pressed against her stomach so that she was curled half around him like a mother cat. One of his hands was holding hers, long fingers splayed lightly across the back of her own. She froze. 

The third thing was that there were clean streaks running down through the general grubbiness of his face; Spike had been crying. 

He was asleep, limbs relaxed and chest moving rhythmically in sleeping breaths. His face looked softened, like the furs; all the tightness drained out into tears and sleep to leave him looking strangely vulnerable as he pressed up to her in unconscious supplication. 

Still frozen in place, she considered what to do. If he could have made himself look smirky and grabby it would have been much easier - she could shove him away with an insult, he could be lewd and mocking, and everything would be normal. But he was barely touching her, as if he didn’t dare to, but  _ needed _ to too much to resist. And his face… she studied his eyelashes, curving in sooty shadows against the clean pale skin of his cheeks; his entirely smirk-free mouth, lips parted slightly and the bottom one looking soft and tender as she knew it could be on her own-- no. Not going there. There must be no more kissage of the evil undead. The  _ chipless _ evil undead, at that. She felt herself tensing further, and worked to relax her body where he was touching. Because somehow, she didn’t want to wake him. She looked at his brow, wondering again at how he could look so perfectly human one second and then all fangy and grr like a change of expression. Did he always look human when he slept? She didn't want to know, she told herself. The human mien was a mask, every source insisted so in their dry yellow pages. A cover to hide the wolf's face while he stalked amongst the flock. Yet… there was something so naked about Spike’s expression right now that she was certain he'd be hiding it in wrinkled ridges and hooded eyes if he knew she was watching him. 

Refusing to call it a decision, she closed her eyes and feigned sleep. The softness and the hush seeped into her again, drawing the last of the tension from her muscles until she half dozed. Without meaning to, she turned her hand over to hold his properly and snuggled her face closer down to their now clasped hands.  _ Bad idea! _ whispered some distant part of her brain;  _ shush,  _ she told it,  _ no one asked you.  _ Because right here, right now, if she didn't let herself think, she kind of felt okay. 

  
  


Spike held his breath suddenly, drawing her back from the edge of sleep with the awareness that he was awake. She tried to keep her own breathing even, though she could do nothing about her accelerating heartbeat. After a few seconds he slipped his hand carefully from hers and pulled away to stand up. She stretched slowly and yawned, then wriggled up to sit. 

He stood at the edge of the ledge, looking towards the door with his back to her. Silence stretched. 

"Sun's going down," he said quietly. 

"Time to catch dinner?"

"Yeah."

She stood up and stretched again, then went to stand at the other end of the ledge. Spike jumped down to the cave floor and crossed to the door; she followed him, glad to not have to talk. 

Her mouth felt all blergh (and possibly sandy), and just outside the door she stopped suddenly as a worrying thought struck her. He looked back, face shuttered but questioning.

"If it doesn't rain… is there water here?" she asked nervously. She was fairly certain she couldn't survive on rabbit blood for hydration, and she was absolutely certain she didn't want to try and find out. 

He nodded. "Yeah. In the rocks. Is where we're going." He turned back to the desert and the jumble of rocks half a mile out.

  
  


The water was in the middle of them, springing up through the sand to make a small pool under a stone overhang. "It tastes clean," he said, a bite to the words, "and the rabbits drink it." He looked away from her again, jaw tight. 

"Don't suppose you've got a cup?" she asked, half joking. 

He shook his head silently. She turned her back on difficult-Spike and cupped her hands in the water to drink. It tasted more than clean; pure and fresh and cool, like it came from the mountains on bottled water labels but hadn't spent six months sitting in plastic. She drank her fill, then splashed some on her face and tried to find a clean part of her shirt to dry it on; a futile endeavour when the yellow sand seemed everywhere. It was all through her hair somehow - probably the landing earlier - and she grimaced at the grittiness as she combed through it with her fingers. She stepped back and tilted her chin at the pool - two can play the silent grumpy game, mister - and Spike slouched forward to swipe some over his face, blurring the tear tracks at last. He wet his hair too, smoothing it straight and back with quick practised fingers, but as soon as his hands left it the tips flopped back into their scraggly two-tone curls. There was something adorable about his attempt to look cool being scuppered by what could almost be called ringlets in places. 

He saw her looking at it and looked her in the eye at last to say, "Not a word, missy." But there was a hint of wry amusement playing on the edge of his mouth. "Let's find you some dinner then," he said lightly, and they started walking. 

  
  


There were lumps and hollows everywhere, areas of packed sand and piles of rabbit dung, but no burrows. "Sand's too soft," he told her. "They try, but it always caves in. They won’t stay in the sun - think it burns them - so they group around the rocks for shade all day."

"Where are they now?" she asked. For all the evidence of them, she hadn’t seen a single rabbit since arriving. 

"Keep walking," he said. 

At least an hour later a taller pile of rocks appeared on the horizon, a jagged little mountain maybe two stories high. As they got nearer she saw rabbits moving around it, flashing here and there in quick dashes. "Rabbit city?" she asked. 

"Capital of Rabbitland," he replied. "Least, far as I've explored."

A few hundred yards away, one of the rabbits stopped and stood on its hind legs, watching them. Spike stopped and reached out to wave her back cautiously. "Hold up," he murmured, watching the rabbit. "Forgot they might come after you." 

"I'm not scared of  _ rabbits _ ," she said automatically. Another head popped up, then another. 

"Good. You can tempt them out then," he said warily. He glanced around, checking the ground where they stood.

She wanted to protest the idea of being bait, but more rabbits were popping their heads up to watch her. This whole situation was their stupid fault, she decided. And Anya was right, they really did have creepy little eyes. "Bet you I get more," she said instead. 

He cocked his head at her, a gleam sparking in his eye. "You won't," he said with complete confidence. "Ready?" 

"Ready, rabbit-boy," she grinned. 

The rabbit that had spotted her first was already crossing the sand towards them, nose questing out ahead as it hopped along. As more began to follow it picked up the pace until it was racing in a full sprint, incredibly fast over the level ground. She loosened her hands ready to grab for it, but just before it reached her Spike waved one hand at it suddenly.  Startled, it dodged outwards, he grabbed it mid-leap with his other hand, and with a flick of his wrist something crunched. He tossed the dead rabbit near her feet and said, "One." 

The whole thing happened so fast that she couldn't help but be impressed. And maybe reconsider her challenge to someone who'd done nothing but catch rabbits for three months. One was nothing though, there were plenty more rabbits coming.

  
  


She ended with a total of two. One she sprang out and ran for before he could intercept her; one that hopped along at the end with a bung leg and he bowed back to let her take, an evil wolfish grin on his face. He killed twenty-eight. 

She threw the bung-leg rabbit at him hard and he caught it smoothly too, then brought out his fangs and bit into it carefully with a grimace. She watched him draining the rabbit, thinking again about fangy-Spike and sleeping-Spike and really-good-at-catching-rabbits-Spike. 

He dropped it and glared at her through yellow eyes as he said, "Eating's the whole point, Slayer. Not doing this for fun." 

She'd been right; for Spike, at least, his teeth were something to hide behind. She shook her head and scrunched her face up further. "No, I was thinking that they don't look very good to eat. Little necks." 

His face flickered before he smoothed it into neutrality. "Kinda furry too," he said carefully. 

"Lucky it is fun then," she said. 

He drained the rest of the rabbits, dumping all but three of them in a pile and tucking the three into his belt by their feet. She gazed around as she waited, pondering the lack of anything but rabbits and now the lack of rabbits here too. 

"Where do we find some tomorrow?" she asked. 

"There's other rock piles," he said. "Couple of days there'll be more of them here, moved in from the desert to clean these up." He nudged the edge of the rabbit pile.

"But…" she prompted. 

"Population's crashing. Were thousands here the first time. Reckon it's not all me, either." He waited for her to put it together. 

"They eat each other?"

"Yep. Nothing else, is there?"

"Then how… they must have come here from somewhere else. Somewhere with other food. Thousands of them."

"Maybe," he said. "Show you something else." 

He led her to the base of the rocks, and eyed them a few times in measurement before bending down to sweep a patch of sand aside with his hands. From below a few inches of sand something smooth began to emerge, and with a few feet of its surface cleared he stepped back for her to look. 

"It's wood," she said, surprised. Man, only been here part of a day and wood already looked out of place and foreign. 

"Not just wood, blondie," he said, but his tone was gentle. "It's a tree, ain't it? Trunk at least nine feet across. Popped up when the sand shifted one day, but the rabbits ate half of it before I thought to rebury it."

She looked around at the desert again, a disturbing picture coming together. "This was a forest," she said quietly. "The rabbits ate it, then they started eating each other."

"That’s my theory."

She let out her breath slowly. It fitted the facts, but she didn't want to accept it. 

"Just a theory," he said, sweeping sand back over the tree. "Let's go cook these."

She nodded, and they began the walk back to the cave.

 

 


	5. In the Desert

 

 

 

** x **

 

He pulled some of his sundried rabbits out of storage and got a fire going with them, chuckling to himself at her stubborn determination not to complain about the stench of burning bone. She really did seem different towards him - or he'd talked himself into remembering her being much more distant than she was - or their situation was forcing her to certain standards of politeness as a wartime truce. But as he watched her watching him from the corner of his eye, he thought that the first felt more accurate; she was looking at him differently. Differently to what end, he couldn’t fathom. The still-avoided conversation about his chip had to be part of it.

Over a dinner of roasted rabbits, she asked more about what he'd discovered here; there really wasn't much to tell. Rabbits. He drew her a map in the sandy floor - here was the cave, here was what he called east (on account of the sun rising in it), here were the rabbit village rock piles to a couple of hours distance. 

"What about up there?" she asked afterwards, looking up at the cave walls that narrowed slightly before vanishing into the dark far above. 

"Ceiling, eventually," he told her; it'd been his first thought too. "Made handholds to climb," -he pointed them out on one wall- "but the walls turn into sheer rock about thirty feet up. Tried throwing stones straight up and they clinked off a rock ceiling. Had a look at digging down from on top, but there didn’t seem much point; if there's a way through, it's on this side." The cave was in the side of a sort of cliff, rising far above it but levelling back down to ground level east and west. He pointed at the rabbit villages on the map. "Can just see most of these on a clear night from up there. Dust obscures them the rest of the time…" He hesitated, and she looked at him sharply. "Thought I might have seen something shining out here once," he admitted, pointing on the map. "Probably some kind of mirage though."

"How far?" 

He shrugged. "Too far to cover in half a night."

"Guess that's me then," she said quietly. 

He opened his mouth to argue, then closed it again. Couldn't expect her to sit here eating rabbits until they ran out. Even if they preserved some it could take months - years - for her chums to work out how to get her home. And as sleek and fat as these rabbits were they still couldn't sustain her longterm, he suspected. “Maybe we could go part way and back tomorrow evening,” he said instead. “See if we can see anything out there or not.”

“Okay,” she said eventually.

He hadn’t expected that. “Better be careful out there. Usually takes me all night to drum up that many rabbits.”

She nodded a tiny acknowledgement; the surprises continued. "What else do you do for fun?" she asked. 

Rage at the sky. Perfect the art of sewing with sinew. Think of you and wank. Think of you and cry. "I've got knucklebones?" he offered. "Well, if you wanna be proper they're vertebrae, but they work just as good."

She looked at him as if unsure if he was serious, so he jumped up and went to get them from their hole in the wall of the bedroom ledge. He threw them down to her in their bag, and she sat there studying it until he sat next to her again. 

"You've made so much stuff," she said, stroking the fluffy bag. "How did you learn how to do all this? I mean, people didn't actually hunt bears for winter coats when you were human, did they?"

"Some did. Some places people still do. Lot of world outside of plastic California, pet. But I saw how to tan the skins the natural way on TV once. You use their brains, mushed up and soaked into the skin." She looked even more disbelieving - or, more like she didn't  _ want  _ to believe him. "Can show you how if you like?" he added with a grin. 

She put down the bag she'd been fondling. 

  
  


They sat at the edge of the cave and played knucklebones by the light of the strange stars, and in the over-competitiveness and ridiculousness of the whole situation he coaxed out a few smiles, and eventually a laugh. It wasn’t just her attitude towards him; something was different about her out here too. Like she’d turned her back on everything she couldn’t do anything about, and resolved just to roll with where she’d found herself. Didn’t know whether he should be worried, or glad she could laugh again. 

When the sky began lightening they retreated inside. She hesitated before the bed until he wriggled his fingers at her and hissed, “ _ Brains!” _ , then she rolled her eyes and lay down on her back. He flopped down on what must now be his side, and laced his hands behind his head to keep them out of trouble. 

“Spike?” she asked in this strange new small voice she’d added for him.

“Yeah?”

“I missed you.”

“Shouldn’t have thrown me down here then.”  _ Shit.  _ He rolled over to face her swiftly. She was staring back with a mixture of anger and hurt. “Fuck, sorry, luv, I didn’t mean that.”

She kept looking at him, and the angry hurt faded. “Do you just open your mouth and words fall out?” she asked, glancing down with a smile. 

“Sometimes,” he sighed. He rolled onto his back and spoke to the ceiling quietly, “I missed you too.”

“Should have come home then,” she said, gently teasing.

He grinned. 

  
  


** + **

 

She woke up thirsty again, and determined to find some way of bringing water back here; a half mile hike every time she wanted a drink was going to get old fast (already had). 

The sun was still out, so she set off for the pool alone, eyes alert for rabbits. The sun felt hot and strangely dry on her skin, and she ran the second half of the way back to get out of it. By evening the skin on her shoulders was warm and flaring with sunburn, and she was remembering Spike's warning about the rabbits avoiding it. 

After picking at a meal of cold roast rabbit she looked at the map again, then they set out. 

They walked fast, Spike snatching a few rabbits that appeared and keeping an eye on the stars while she looked around and imagined trees, grass, butterflies. Puzzling-desert-world had revealed itself as the starving aftermath of someone else’s apocalypse, and she wondered who that someone might be. It probably hadn’t been so different from her own world before the rabbits came; she really hoped she’d been successful in catching every one that had made it through to Sunnydale.

Several hours on, Spike cast another glance at the sky and warned her, “Maybe half an hour more. Then we’d better turn around.”

Behind her she could still make out the cliff that held their cave; ahead was unbroken sand. They’d not even seen a rock pile for the past hour. 

Ten minutes later, she thought she saw something. A glimmer far towards the horizon; a glint of reflecting starlight. She wanted to run for it, whistle up a cab and be taken to it. She stopped, and they studied it. "Building?" she asked after a few minutes. 

"I think so. Glass, metal maybe."

"How far do you think that is?"

He pursed his lips. Looked back at the cave, out at the glimmer. At the smooth empty sand between it and them. "Hard to say… Looks like more than a night's walk."

They watched it in silence for a few minutes longer, then turned to start walking back. 

  
  


Snuggled down in the rabbit bed for the third day running, she tried to work out what time it would be at home. Which would have been easier had she looked at a clock before she left home. It hadn't been late, she knew, which put it around… 2 am now maybe? Unlikely anyone had missed her yet. This felt like dream time, someone else’s peculiar nightmare; her stolen fantasy perhaps, born of all her unspoken wishes to step out of her life and be free (though if it was her fantasy, why was he here too?). She could feel him just over there, slayer senses tingling in a strangely comforting way at his presence, ears tracking his tiny movements and breathing. It would be so easy to wriggle a little closer, deny culpability in the dimness and press her lips to his again. Let the fantasy flow out into naked bodies wrapped together in the silken furs. 

Then they'd go home, and he'd eat the neighbours, and she'd have to pick up her duty. Or maybe he wouldn't, and that might be scarier, because he was so  _ hungry,  _ and she was so empty. She rolled over and tried to get to sleep.

  
  


At sunset he reached into the mattress and pulled out his coat, then filled one of its pockets with dried rabbit meat. He tucked the zippo into another pocket, then looked around fruitlessly for anything else he could provision her with.

They went to the pool first, then retraced their steps from the night before, moving at a swift jog. They reached what she was sure was the area they'd stopped at last time; he glanced at the sky and carried on. Half an hour later she stopped firmly, and he stood looking at the horizon in reluctance as he shrugged off his coat and passed it to her. 

"I'll bring it back," she said. 

"You'd better," he grumbled, flicking his gaze over her. Something imploring came into his eyes and he started, "Buffy, don't--"

"Don't," she said quickly. "I'll be back in no time." 

He swallowed, then stood there looking at her unhappily. The longing on his face made something pang in her chest uncomfortably, and for a moment she considered tossing the plan aside to go back to the cave with him. On impulse she stepped up to him and kissed him as she'd wanted to earlier, pressing her lips to his hard and fast before pulling back again. 

"I will," she said, then turned and ran away.

  
  


** x **

 

He walked back to the cave muttering about infuriating bloody women that like to kiss a bloke then turn tail and flee. Dragging his feet and casting back glances constantly the walk took most of the night; yet as soon as he sat down in the cave he had to get up and pace, uneasy and anxious. He left the door open so he could watch the desert in case she came back early, then dragged a blanket down close to it and tried to nap between checks. 

As soon as the sun slipped away he ran back out there, then paced around holding a loud argument with himself about how far it was safe to go and how long he could wait. In the distance the glimmery thing glimmered clearly tonight, mocking him with its visibility and distance; maybe it was a statue of her. So long as it wasn't a giant rabbit. Finally he had to give up and return to the lonely cave, chasing down a couple of bunnies on the way in a fury at this stupid world and perplexing women and  _ goddamn rabbits. _

He sat where he could watch the desert again, and that afternoon he spotted her. At this distance she almost looked stationary, a little speck of black in all the yellow; he watched, willing her on fiercely from the edge of the shade, and the speck grew. Shoulda painted something on the cliff face for her, he thought;  _ Welcome Home Buffy  _ in ten-foot letters of rabbit blood. Probably only piss her off though - this wasn't home, for all its perks. 

He fidgeted sharply and cursed the skies for the next couple of hours until finally,  _ finally,  _ the sun slipped away and he could run to meet her. 

 

She was stumbling along with her eyes on the ground, and he slowed his exuberant dash to edge up to her hesitantly. When she didn't look up he dropped into step beside her, biting his tongue as long as well as he could. 

“You came back,” he said eventually. 

She stopped and looked at him sharply, then sighed and dropped her gaze again as she continued walking. Shrugging his coat from her shoulders, she passed it to him then folded her arms across her midsection. He held the coat out for a few seconds longer, but she ignored it. He slipped it on to carry, then tried to work out how to ask. 

“In the pocket,” she said, forestalling the need to. 

He dug around in the one she'd indicated and pulled out a glossy brochure and a sheaf of folded paper, and stopped dead to stare at the texture and colour of these foreign items. Beside him she sank down to sit on the sand, dropping her forehead into her hands. He sat down beside her and looked at the brochure. 

On the cover was an image of a sparkling glass and chrome building somewhat resembling an office, surrounded by a forest of perfectly uniform trees. The tree's nine foot wide trunks rose smooth and uninterrupted to a massive height before spreading into wide crowns above, and the ground below looked cool and mossy.

"That’s the shiny thing," she said listlessly. "It's like a hotel."

Hotel T'varow, the title said. Exclusive holiday resort of Wolfram & Hart, Transdimensional. The inside showed images of hotel rooms, restaurants, leafy forest pools with twinkling fairy lights and steam rising from the water. With a last wistful glance at the - presumably warm - water, he closed the brochure and slipped it back into his pocket. 

When he unfolded the sheaf of paper she stood up suddenly and started walking again, with angry little steps. 

He scrambled to catch up and dodged around her to walk backwards, watching her face. 

"Read it," she said sullenly. "Leave me alone." She unfolded one of her arms ready to block, or hit out, and sidestepped around him before speeding up again. 

He watched her go, perplexed. Then looked at the papers and began to read, one eye on her retreating back. 

The papers were a copy of a report from the manager of the hotel, summarising the rabbit problem, the attempts made to rectify it, and the final decision to abandon the dimension temporarily and allow them to die out. The rabbits were thought to have arrived through a brief tear in the dimensional walls fourteen years ago, and had bred rapidly on a diet of the massive dytharn trees. Within a few years they were felling trees left and right, rendering the forest unsafe and the hotel less attractive. Hunts were organised, rabbit-eating demons were offered extra holiday leave here, spells were cast. But the rabbits seemed to outbreed every attempt to curb their numbers, and after a decade of only backwards progress, they were bespelled to eat each other. Only they hadn't. 

Facing an army of carnivorous rabbits, the hotel had been evacuated of living staff and guests. A small group of the undead - including the manager - had stayed on to monitor the situation, until the forest had finished its transformation to desert and the starving rabbits finally seemed to be turning on each other as intended. Then they too had packed up to leave the place, recommending a one month wait in earth time before anyone returned to reassess the situation. The remaining staff were being shifted to another dimensional branch of the hotel; the manager himself would portal out from the Xytera cave location to the Los Angeles branch of Wolfram & Hart - via the Californian hellmouth. 

Had he any way of comparing calendars, he’d bet the manager had left the day they found the first rabbit. Stupid fucker obviously forgot to close the door. 

That explained everything except the enigma of the little golden creature steadfastly stumbling across the desert away from him, arms tucked tight again and head down. He shoved the pages back in his pocket and jogged to catch up. 

"What?" he asked her.

"You read it?" she asked tiredly. It was more than simple weariness though; there was some unknown emotion making her prickly and miserable.

"Yeah… why the downer?" 

"You work out how they got here?"

"Tear in the…" He stopped, calculating. "Glory." Still didn’t explain anything. "And?"

She huffed at the ground scornfully. "Of course you wouldn't get it," she muttered. 

"Then bloody explain it!" he shouted, flinging his hands out. 

She stopped and looked at him at last, eyes red-rimmed and haunted. "It was me, Spike. I was too slow to stop Glory, and this place was destroyed. Who knows where else was, or what might have got through to ours… there was a dragon, I think, that flew away."

"Pretty sure this one's on her," he said, incredulous. 

She shook her head, denying. "No. I should have been faster- I stood there talking to Dawn while fucking rabbits fell through the sky to cause an apocalypse, I should've- I can’t-" She paused and gulped, then shouted at him, "All I do is destroy things!" She flung her hands out at him, open palmed, and he forced himself not to flinch. "Even you," she added quietly, then crumpled down to sit on the sand. 

He lowered himself beside her slowly, trying to order his thoughts and pin down the crux of all this. Girl made no bleeding sense. Seemed like the desert was exactly where she wanted to be, and she was beyond his grasp in it. 

Didn’t mean he wouldn't try. “Maybe some things need to be destroyed. You think this place was a reward for charitable services? Probably a holiday bonus for the employee with the most souls corrupted each week. And you know, it won't always be like this. The rabbits are dying. One day it'll rain, or something, and something will grow again. It won't be the same as it was, but that don't mean it won't be something good." He looked away, out across the sand. "Buffy… I meant it when I said I’ve changed. People aren’t just sodding happy meals anymore, they're… I don’t know. Don't know what I am anymore. You’re right, you know; I don't understand. Can’t. Don't know how you feel for everyone the way you do. But I see what you bring to everyone, and you make me want to try to."

"I don't," she said quietly. "Not anymore. I'm the one who's changed, Spike. I just… follow the script. Paint on a smile and go kill something. I don't feel it anymore."

"Then why do you put on that smile? Why are you upset about this stupid place?" 

She frowned, lost for an answer. 

"Yeah. Takes time for things to start growing again, luv."

She was quiet for a while, sifting her fingers through the sand. 

He stood up and offered her a hand. "Think it's in the script," he said, mentally crossing his fingers.  _ "'Let Spike help sometimes. He's good at killing rabbits.'" _

She smiled sadly, and looked from his hand to his face. "I don't have anything to give you. I'm the desert, remember?"

In the hollow of her eyes he saw the truth of his stupid metaphor. "Just take my hand. Already in the desert, hasn't destroyed me yet."

"It still might," she said. Then she took his hand. 

  
  
  
  



	6. Slip

 

 

** + **

 

She was too tired to keep refusing him; knew he'd have retorts for anything she could come up with. So she let him pull her to her feet, and they walked to the pool. 

Water cleared her wits a little, and she remembered the bottle. "Look in the other pocket," she said. 

He did, pulling out the plastic water bottle she'd found, a couple of ballpoint pens, and a silver fork.

She took the bottle and waved at the other things. "Those are for you… there wasn’t anything else there that I could carry. But they work, I checked." 

He was staring at them, astonishment silencing his too-quick tongue. She ducked down to fill the bottle, wondering what on earth she'd been thinking when she decided to bring them back for him. Only… she'd wanted to.

"Thanks," he said.

“It was nothing,” she said quickly.

He must have picked up her nervousness; without further comment he tucked them back into his pocket carefully and offered her a hand up again. Feeling like she’d just crossed a border somewhere, she passed him the bottle to carry instead. 

The last half mile to the cave dragged her limbs into the shaky zone of near complete depletion, and she had to scrabble the landing when she jumped onto the ledge. She sat on the bed, then gave in to her body's plea to lie down. He offered her food, fire, more blankets; she turned them down in favour of not moving. 

"How far was it?" he asked.

She struggled to think; back was a long blur. "The night and the morning to get there. Evening when I left."

"Christ, no wonder you're shattered. Place was that creepy?"

"No…" It was dark in bed at this hour, pitch black with the downstairs door closed on the starlight. Her eyes were open to it, seeming soothed by the velvet blackness after peering at bright sand from under the cover of his coat all day.  _ I didn't want you to worry  _ she thought, but that wasn't the reason that had prodded to flee back so fast and it felt wrong to hang untruths in the velvet air. "I feel better when I'm with you," she said in a whisper, and the words fell gently to blend with the fuzziness.  _ I don't understand,  _ she remembered from earlier, and she didn’t anymore either.  _ Explain.  _ "Spike… when I kissed you…"

He was silent, dead still beside her as he held his breath. 

"I wanted it to hurt. I wanted you to drag me down and raze me to ashes. Blame me, disparage me, punish me. I wanted kissing you to feel like Angel." 

She heard his teeth grating as he hissed in a breath, and rushed on before he could interrupt. "I told him once that kissing him made me want to die. But you… you felt like a thunderstorm. And I don't know what to do with that."

He crawled over from his end of the bed, reaching an arm across so that he loomed above her in the dark. The only thing that touched her was his cool breath on her cheeks as he bent closer. "I don't know what to do with you either," he murmured. "Loving you terrifies me."

"You shouldn't love me. There's nothing in my desert but pain." He would be the one who was razed, she was certain, bent and broken by his hunger in her barren landscape. 

"I can't walk away," he whispered. "So let it rain."

It was impossible, it was twisted and wrong; this man who saw the promise of his destruction and held out his arms to embrace it. 

"Okay," she whispered. Then she lifted her hands and pulled him down to her.

 

** x **

 

Buffy’s lips met his in a surge of heat as she pressed herself against him, and he closed his eyes to all else. The part of him that had been hissing a warning fell silent, scorched away perhaps, or simply defeated, knowing it was far too late to be heeded. She stripped off her clothes and pushed him from his to wrap her naked legs around his waist; his head swum, intoxicated by the Buffy-scent flooding it in ragged pants between their mouths. Her hands clung to him, dug into him, urgent and begging of him; he poured himself into her, over her, around her. Then  _ into  _ her as she arched up to meet him, liquid fire pulsing all around him as she dropped her head back and clenched her thighs. They were lost, both of them, he knew; at the mercy of merciless forces. So he clung to her in return and let go.

  
  


She fell asleep half on top of him as soon as they relaxed into the afterglow, exhaustion catching her in the space of a breath. He lay there with a stillness that mingled post-orgasmic languidness with the beginning pricklings of fearful freeze, and this steady thumping heat against one side of his chest where she lay that bounced both feelings off each other like drum beats. He'd just slept with Buffy. He'd just been buried inside the most secret part of her while she moaned his name in supplication. Buffy was sound asleep on top of him. He was entirely ill-equipped for what might happen next; his most hopeless fantasies had never offered a road map for anything beyond carnal satisfaction. He was utterly fucked. 

He pulled her words apart throughout the night, rotating and rearranging memories of her. Her numbness and her anger; her bloody martyr complex. Her resignation. That night of sharing shots on a sarcophagus. Sitting in silence together. The almost-betrayed shock on her face when she'd pulled away from that first kiss outside the Bronze; the sadness in her eyes when she'd come to him by the stairs. Her warnings in the dark here that weren’t for herself. And the flickering  _ want _ that drove her to ignore them. By the time the sun rose he thought just maybe he knew what she needed. 

He hoped.

  
  


** + **

 

Rational-Buffy started her tirade as soon as she awoke -  _ (what have you done!) _

_ And where were you last night?  _ she asked herself.  _ That’s right. Too late to pipe up now. _

Rational-Buffy had a point though; what  _ had  _ she done? 

_ (Boinked the evil undead!) _

_ Oh, shut up. What the hell do I do now?  _ Spike was never going to let her shrug this off as a temporary breach of sanity. 

Except… he kind of seemed to be. When she opened her eyes he was sitting on the edge of the ledge, leaning his back against the wall to put him side-on to her. He was fiddling with some bits of fur in his lap, and although he must have heard her wake he didn’t look over until she moved to sit up.   
  
“Afternoon, pet,” he said lightly, and gave her a plain little smile before looking back to his fur-thing. 

No knowing smirk, no innuendo… if it wasn’t for the flash of adoring pleasure in his eyes she'd have thought he'd found last night a terrible disappointment. Some part of her still worried that he had. Watching, she saw the way his hands were twitchy on the fur, fumbly and clumsy where they were always so graceful. Spike was nervous. 

Well, that made… the entire human population. 

She looked around and located her discarded clothes, folded up next to her on the bed. Pulling them under the blanket with her, she wriggled them on with one eye on him; except for turning the fur back and forth, he didn't move. Dressed, she pulled the blanket around her shoulders instead. "What are you making?" she asked. 

He picked something up from his side and tossed it to her. "Boots."

"Slippers," she said, turning it over. Or almost short socks, really - a soft leather tube with the end folded and stitched closed, and a hole on the top with laces running around to close it. 

"Moccasins, then," he replied.

"Moccasins," she agreed. Then stage-whispered, "Much more badass." 

He smiled, almost hiding his anxiousness. "Want a pair?"

She stretched her feet out of the bottom of the blanket, grimacing at the raw skin on her heels. Thank god she'd been wearing her comfortable old sneakers when she left home that night, but even they couldn’t keep her blister-free for what must have been forty-two hours on her feet. "Yeah. That'd be wonderful."

He nodded, pleased, and turned to riffle through a stack of rabbit skins beside him. 

She stood up and motioned to the door. "I'm just gonna…"  _ go pee out of sight.  _ "Get a drink."

"Coat," he said, nodding to it. "Bottle's in the pocket." 

"Thanks," she said, then blushed stupidly. She grabbed his coat and fled before either of them could come out with something to increase the awkward. 

  
  


** x **

 

Slayer closed the door behind her and the sound of her feet moved away, then he dropped his hands into his lap and sighed in relief. Hadn’t known what to expect; vitriol, denial, retraction, self-disgust… a summons back to bed (least likely). Something had broken between them with the kisses, and trying to repair it now that they'd gone all the way to- (well, he couldn’t call it shagging, but it wasn't making love, either. Not mutually.) Anyway. Trying to repair it now that they'd gone  _ 'all the way' _ was perhaps a target too high, knowing how shakily she viewed his (unevilness? Lack of murderous intent?) and what she thought her attraction to him said about her. But he was nothing if not up for a challenge; he'd damn well show her a thing or two about loving. Yeah. That was it. 

He picked up his sewing.

By the time she returned from the water run and whatever else she'd found to stall with he was wriggling his toes into the softness of moccasins and ready present her with the same. When she sat down inside the door and started unlacing her sneakers with a wince he jumped down and held them out to her.

"This isn't some demonic wedding proposal, is it?" she asked, faux-suspicious.

He snorted and threw them at her, relaxing a little more. She seemed almost as anxious to keep things smooth as he was. "Only footwear."

She took them and started putting them on; he retreated to the bedroom and busied himself putting things away. A minute later she climbed up too.

"Thank you," she said, flushing again. "Surprisingly comfortable. And, umm, all with the fashion," She grinned, pointing one dainty foot out to display the Chuck Taylors logo he'd drawn on it.

"Course," he said, grinning. 

She sat down on the edge of the ledge with her legs swinging off it and looked up speculatively. "I was thinking about the ceiling," she said. "Did you ever try throwing rabbits at it?"

Did he ever…? "Think I might have thrown rabbits everywhere. Not purposefully up there though." Why the hell hadn't he? He jumped downstairs and grabbed one of the dried ones, throwing it as high as he could. 

It fell slowly to land with a soft flump, withered husks proving incompatible with aerodynamicy. He tried a few more times, but if it was hitting the top up there it was too quiet to hear.

"We'll try a fresh one," she said. 

  
  


When dark fell she waved off his concerns about her feet and they headed out to find some bunnies. Having lured and wiped out a much better-populated rabbit village, they compared scores; she'd managed a full quarter of them this time. Mostly by keeping ahead of him through the rocks. He drained several dozen, then tied dozens more into bundles for them to carry back for drying and cooking. 

Back inside, she hefted a rabbit then threw it hard. It hit with a  _ thud, _ then fell back to the ground. She sighed, disappointed, and asked what to do with the rabbits for drying. 

While she ate he looked up into the darkness, thinking. The stinking rabbits had found a way through somehow, and they definitely couldn't jump that high. And Mr Hotel Manager. Maybe he’d had a ladder. Or levitated, and taken an armload of bunnies with him. "Let's look on top again," he said. 

They spent the remainder of the night on the hill over the cave, scouring the ground and the face of it for rabbit holes. It was hole-less. 

Frustration was crawling up his scalp; he was certain there was an answer here somewhere, if only he could see it. He thought he'd been desperate to get home before, imagining a future where he slowly went insane and started believing himself a rabbit, king of the rabbits, before finally starving when they did. Now the starving part had been replaced with something worse, much worse, and it was undoing his ability to keep the casual smile in place.

He was on his stomach looking down over the edge of the cliff face again when she came and stood next to him. 

"Spike…" she said hesitantly. "We'll get home somehow."

He turned to look at her. She was watching the lightening horizon, arms folded in again and expression distant. He climbed to his feet, brushing off the never-ending sand. "Course we will."

They returned to the cave and the awkward hesitation grew. He felt like his palms should be sweating or something, and wondered briefly if it was a genuinely remembered sensation or just something he'd read in novels enough times to think of it. The warm scent of her in the close quarters of the bedroom was fuzzying up his thoughts again; he struggled to remember why he wasn't wrestling her into bed. Then her hands were reaching for him, and he was. 

  
  
  
  



	7. In Two Shakes of a Rabbit's Tail

 

 

 

** x **

 

He dreamed of rabbits (of course). A world made of rabbits, with rabbit-rocks and rabbit-trees and rabbit-buildings that hopped away when he reached for the doors on their flanks. He found her in the dreamscape, hopping across the rabbit-grass on her hands and feet, a pair of ears slowly sprouting from her head. “We have to get out of here,” he told her.

Her ears grew taller and swivelled towards him. “No, no,” she said. "I want to be a bird."

A whoosh of air jerked his attention to the sky, where rabbit-birds flew under rabbit-shaped clouds.

"We've got to get out of here," he said again, but this time his voice fell into the still air of the cave as he looked up at the ceiling over the bed. 

Beside him she shifted slightly without waking, and he looked down at the top of her head on his arm. No ears. No lumps that might become them, either. Dream-him was right - they really had to find a way home. Her cold-bitch shield seemed to have dissolved into passivity since she'd taken his hand in the desert - not quite the numb blankness of a month ago; rather more of a conscious surrender of all decisions and any liability with them. Her giving in felt like a giving up, and for all his words to the contrary he feared where his lead might take them. Home, though. Had to get her home. Then he could worry about the rest.

  
  


** + **

 

She woke to a steady spaced  _ thump … thud _ ; the sound of a rabbit hitting the distant ceiling and being caught. She wriggled deeper under the blanket, down until it covered her entirely and she could only see out through a fluffy tunnel. The fur cocoon was dim and warm, gentle on her bare skin. She was a baby rabbit in its mother's fur-lined nest. Did these cannibalistic bunnies have babies? She hadn't seen any. Maybe she would really turn into one, a giant rabbit baby in Spike’s fur nest. 

_ Thump … thud. _ He'd fallen asleep before her, after hours of unspeaking exploration and exultation in each other's bodies. She'd felt the words he was biting back as she deafened herself to her own; this bed was a limbo that voices might shatter, and neither was willing to risk this unnamed thing they'd found. When the words drifted away as he fell asleep beside her she'd whispered new ones of her own, telling secrets again:  _ I don't want to go home.  _ Fantasy, daydream, reverie; they couldn’t stay here forever. Sooner or later he'd have to eat baby-rabbit-her, and then there'd be nothing left. 

_ Thump … thud.  _ Home was harsh voices on the insides while balmy landscapes mocked her from out. Home was finishing the argument that had sent him here. Home was being expected to face things.

 

_ Thump …  .  _

 

She felt like her heart stopped with it, forever paused. Then he spoke, hushed and anxious with hope, and it slammed back into motion against her ribcage, frenetic and painful. 

"Slayer?"

"Yes?" she spoke from her nest.

"The rabbit's gone."

She dressed slowly, precisely, then trickled out to see for herself. He'd marked the floor off in squares, lines drawn in the sand, and now he had her stand in one as he turned to the walls to make more permanent guides. Slashes were gouged at the four winds and now she stood on an invisible X between them, his fulcrum while the world tilted. He handed her a rabbit and she closed her eyes and threw, then waited with her palms extended long after the flash. 

He exploded with excitement, wolfishness transformed into the leap of an exhilarated puppy hearing a knock at the door. It was contagious, his beaming smile and floppy-haired jumping prompting her to smile too, and if she couldn't bounce and clap it didn’t matter because he did enough for both of them.

The plan was simple after that - follow the lost rabbits. Climb. They dug into the walls of the cave for the heavier clay-ish sand, mounding it high enough on the floor to reach the point where the walls turned to stone. The stone was dead smooth, black and glassy, impenetrable no matter what they hit it with. Taking a flaming rabbit up there didn’t reveal anything above; the hidden ceiling seemed to absorb light somehow. 

Build higher then. Over the next few days her nails wore down to stubs from scrabbling through the sand, and their mountain slowly grew. She felt him watching her when she looked away; she did the same to him. In the desert, at the digging, over the fire, they talked lightly or worked in silence; he didn’t question anything, and neither did she. They simply were, and strangely that was okay. When she crawled into bed he was drawn along with her, over her, around her, and she bit her lip as lilting strings of endearments began to slip from his lips to her skin in the darkness.

Then one afternoon, the mountain-ladder was built. He tied a short string to a rabbit and swung it up from atop the pile; there was a flash, then the string fell back severed. They could jump that high.

“Get your stuff,” he said brusquely as he slithered down to the cave floor.

“But--” She didn’t know what she was trying to say.  _ I belong here, _ perhaps.  _ It's too sudden.  _

He didn’t look back. When she still hadn’t climbed down to follow by the time he reached the bedroom, he swivelled back and stared hard at her across the cave. His expression was stormy, swirling with mixed emotion beneath the tightness of his stance. She watched him in silence until his face calmed and he said it again, gentler. “Come and get your stuff, pet. Time to go.”

With dragging feet, she did.

  
  


** x **

 

Crazy girl wanted to take the blanket, despite their investigations having proven only freshly dead rabbits would go through the portal.    


"I'll wear it," she insisted stubbornly, clutching a bunch of it to her chest. Damn thing was big enough to cover a king size bed; was hardly going to fit in a pocket. "Our clothes were fine. Besides, it'll be sunny there by now, we might need the cover."

"Got my coat," he pointed out. 

She gripped the blanket tighter.

"We can buy a new one."

"Like from a fur farm?" she said, looking disgusted. 

"Yeah…" 

Disgust turned to angry revulsion. "Have you  _ seen _ those places?"

_ Christ, there were ethics for blankets now? _ He was never going to manage this. He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair again, trying to convince it to stay off his face. "Alright," he sighed. "Bring it along then. We'll work it out somehow."

She relaxed and looked from her moccasin-clad feet to her well-worn sneakers in the corner, then pronounced herself packed. 

He shoved a few things in his pockets then glanced around the room, lingering on the bed. Then he turned his back on it and led the way back to the ceiling. 

On top of the mountain he studied the blanket problem again, and the one they hadn't yet spoken - jump together, or take turns? Couldn't decide if it was safer to send her first, or if he should take the test jump.

Before he could make up his mind she grabbed his hand, gripping tight enough to seriously bruise a mortal. "I don't want to do it alone," she said in a voice that aimed for fierce but wobbled into more of a plea. 

Neither did he. He took the blanket from her and pulled her up against him, then wrapped it tight around them both. "Wanna count for us then?"

They bent their knees, she counted back from three, then they jumped for the spot of blackness where the rabbits vanished.

  
  


The world flashed yellow again and the air pressed them together like they’d dived into jelly. Then the jelly vanished into a split-second of regular air before they crashed into the ceiling of the hollow tree. He kicked a leg out at where he hoped a wall might be, and caught it hard enough with his knee to knock their fall towards the entrance of the tree. Hadn’t considered the possibility of falling straight back through if they made it.

They landed half out of the hollow, on ground that was muddy and mossy and cushioned with a deep layer of leaf litter. And several dead rabbits. The shade of the forest here saved him from having to scramble for cover, so for the first minute they just looked at each other, the forest, each other, the mud, wide-eyed and panting. Then she wriggled to pull away, so he slid his arms slowly from her back and watched her squirm out from the blanket and to her feet.    


They gathered branches to fill in the hollow quickly, packing it tightly enough to block any trailing rabbits from getting out. He shook leaves from the blanket, then folded it roughly over an arm.

“Kinda thought someone might have been here,” she said, glancing around. 

“Probably all at research central. You’d better go tell them they can call off the search party.”

“What are you going to--”

“Can dash to the crypt from here,” he said, unfolding the bunny blanket over his head. “Better check nothing’s moved in.”

“I was there… the day I came… yesterday, I suppose,” she said, frowning to herself as she worked it out. “It was fine then.” She shuffled her feet. 

"Go on. The bit will be worried. And you'd better get the witch onto sealing this. I'll catch you later." He adjusted the blanket, gave her a nod, and waited for her to take a few steps towards leaving before bolting for his crypt.

  
  


** + **

 

She went home first, calling out a  _ hello? _ to the quiet house. No answer. Alright then. She considered ringing The Magic Box before deciding it would be easier to walk there and get the flood of explanations and recriminations over with in person.

Willow, Xander, and Anya were clustered behind the counter when she entered, heads together and hands gesticulating angrily as they argued in whispers. They looked like they'd simply continued (and escalated) the argument they'd been engaged with in her kitchen when she'd last seen them. None of them looked up at the bell; did these people have any awareness of their surroundings once they started in on each other? She stood across the counter from them until Xander finally glanced up and squeaked her name. 

Then came the rush of exclamations and the first round of questions. She walked over to the table and sat down, and the jabbering group followed. 

"Where's Dawn?" she asked before answering any.

Dawn was at school, and Xander would call them now to have a note sent to her class updating her that all was well again. 

Spike was at home, she told them. He'd been in the other dimension three months. She'd been there eleven days. Details another time. And where had the discussion got the three of them while she was gone?

Willow started detailing the spell she'd been preparing to attempt on the hollow; Anya resumed her argument with her that opening a portal to rabbit land was too great a risk to take. Xander dove back in to comment that he'd been trying to call Giles, but hadn't managed to reach him. Yet. The volume grew and she stood up again to put some space between her and them. Xander turned his attentions to Anya with a whispered  _ please consider lost-in-portal-girl's feelings.  _

"Buffy doesn't mind," Anya told him loudly. "I'm sure she fully understands the need for extreme caution in these situations." She gave Buffy a bright smile.

"Anya’s right," she told them, managing to smile an acknowledgement at her. Blunt honesty was relieving somehow with the surreptitious looks she'd caught between Willow and Xander. "And the portal’s still open. There's not many rabbits left down there, but we absolutely can not risk any getting through. Can you close it?" she asked Willow. 

"Of course. I'll just need a few things from home."

"Okay." 

Okay. She organised for Xander to meet Dawn after school, then walked home with Willow to collect whatever witchy things were needed. 

"Nice shoes," Willow said on the way. 

She looked down at her moccasins in surprise; they'd drifted to the back of her mind in all the worry. "Yeah. They're rabbit.  _ Everything  _ was rabbit."

"It'll take me a little while to get things ready," Willow said. "Why don't you have a shower while you wait? Or a bath."

She touched her hair self-consciously and winced as she freed a leaf from the gritty yellow tangle. "I'd like to be offended by that suggestion… but yeah. That sounds like a plan. Probably going to break the plumbing with the amount of sand on me though."

"I could hose you off first?" Willow smiled weakly.

"Don't you dare. Slayer metabolism does not extend to hose water."

"Cleansing spell?"

"No. You'd better save some juice for the portal. We'll risk the plumbing this time."

  
  


After catching sight of herself in the bathroom mirror she turned her back on it to strip and drop her clothes straight into the bin, minus the moccasins. Then she sat down in the shower and watched the water run yellow with the muck of Rabbitland for what felt like an eternity. Several ounces of shower gel and several more of shampoo and conditioner later she finally switched off the water and wrapped herself in a towel that felt peculiar for its lack of fur. 

Her bedroom was exactly the same; well, of course it was, she reminded herself, you were only here last night. She dressed and found Willow ready downstairs, and they headed for the back of the cemetery. 

Passing not far from Spike’s crypt she felt her eyes drawn to it, and thought about suggesting they check up on him. But he was probably sleeping, or endlessly showering-- why hadn't she offered him her bathroom? Too late now, and Willow was striding ahead to do her thing at the portal anyway, which really did need doing asap. She hurried to catch up.

In the clearing she checked to make sure their branches hadn’t been shifted, then took Willows bag to hold and stood back to watch.

Willow circled the tree, trailing a silver thread out behind her and murmuring words. Then she held both ends of the thread over the entrance to the hollow and began tying them together. As she went to pull the knot tight, the tree shook suddenly, a lurching tremor that tore one end of the string from Willow’s hand. 

Willow threw the other end of the string aside with a huff, and held her hands out to either side instead, glaring angrily. A silver substance flowed out from her palms to encircle the tree, wide bands of coiling ribbon that lashed themselves around the trunk and tightened swiftly. The tree groaned and creaked beneath the pull of them, then with a deafening crack of splintering wood, the whole thing caved inwards in a burst of yellow light. 

This time at least she’d had the sense to close her eyes tight and turn away as the tree cracked, so when the flash faded from behind her eyelids she was able to look back and see with a minimum of hazy spots. Except for the giant stationary hazy spot where the tree had been. It looked like a heat shimmer, a patch of rippling air that wasn’t quite right. She rushed to help Willow up from where she’d fallen to the ground, eyes watching the haze spot warily. 

Willow stood on wobbly legs, holding tight to Buffy’s arm for support. 

“Is that supposed to be doing that?” Buffy asked.

“Umm… I don’t think so?” Willow admitted anxiously, blinking and squinting at it. “I’m sure it’s okay though. I felt the portal give way.”

_ Yeah, really not the answer I was looking for, Wills.  _ Scattered around the ground were the branches they’d packed the hollow with, so she looked through them until she found one of the dead rabbits. She threw it hard at the haze spot and watched as it hit the empty air, sort of hung there for a moment, then fell to the ground. Retrieving it, she tried again, harder, and got the same effect. She looked at Willow, lifting her eyebrows. 

“I think it’s just dissipating slowly,” Willow answered hopefully. “I’m sure it’ll be all gone soon.”

Sighing, Buffy sat down on a log to watch and wait. 

Willow was quiet -  _ too  _ quiet - but Buffy couldn’t find it in herself to make the dialogue-opening small talk. Was she waiting for Buffy to ask how she was doing without Tara, or an apology for sneaking off last night? Maybe she was just worrying about the hazy patch. So Buffy watched it and thought about the patterns it made, and listened to the million sounds of cars and birds and rustling leaves and how very loud they all were. It was good Willow was not. 

When the sun had moved and the haze hadn't, Willow announced that she would ward the area from visitors - repel them somehow - so they could go home and she could check the books. 

  
  


There were sisterly admonitions and a brief description of where she'd been to be got through, then Dawn gulped back further complaint as Buffy hugged her tentatively. She wanted to do more, say more somehow, but when the hug ended Dawn volunteered herself for homework and retreated. Xander left, Willow had vanished to research-land, and soon the sun would go down. 

It was her turn to loiter in the doorway, where she told Dawn she needed to check on Spike and do a quick patrol. Dawn shooed her off, telling her to pass on a  _ welcome back _ , then she could leave. 

  
  


She wanted to go straight to the crypt, but remembered yesterday-twelve-days-ago's resolution to bring him blood. So she took her wallet and turned her feet to the butcher's. 

She was walking out with her bag when she almost walked into him going the other way. They both startled oddly, then spoke the same words over each other, "What are you doing here?"

He recovered first. "What am I… picking up some blood, ain't I?" He stepped back from the door to let her join him outside.

"Why?" she asked stupidly, holding her bag. 

" _ Why?"  _ he repeated, anger sweeping across him. He lifted his hands and shouted at her, "I don't bloody know!" Then turned in a swirl of leather and stomped away from her. 

"Spike," she said in a voiceless little whisper. 

He stopped, leaning forwards like he was straining against a leash. She didn't know if he'd heard her, or just couldn't move any further away. Slowly he turned back to her.

"I bought you some," she said. "So you don't need to."

He looked at the bag. In a voice that started out sneery before trailing off into lost confusion, he asked, "What makes you think I want that pig swill?" 

"Do you?" she asked. 

He looked down and away, breathing visibly. Then flicked his eyes back to her. "At least it's not rabbit," he murmured, then came and took the bag she held out. He nodded his head down the street. "Coming?"

She didn’t know where they were going. "Yep," she said, and took a step to follow.

  
  
  
  
  



	8. Where We Are

 

 

 

** x **

 

At the crypt he filled a mug then put the rest of the blood in the fridge. Digging around in there he found a can of coke but nothing edible, and passed it to her apologetically; felt like he should be roasting her a bunny. 

The whole crypt had been another giant mindfuck, everything exactly as it had been when he left it three-months-slash-three-days ago. Bottle of blood in his fridge was still good and tasted like goddamn ambrosia with its non-rabbitness; no layer of dust had settled on the album he'd left out on the turntable. By the time he'd showered and changed he was tugging at the ends of his hair for proof that it wasn’t all some extremely vivid dream. She'd treat it as one, he was certain, armour herself again in frosty looks and cutting words. 

Yet… here she was. More huddled than sharp, and pulling a bag of burba weed from her pocket to drop on his bench. 

"What's this then?" he asked her. 

She shrugged and opened the can of coke, then toyed with it on the sarcophagus-bench. "I don't want to be back here," she said in a rush, then took a gulp of her drink. 

There was a bloody ambiguous statement if ever there was one. He took his time removing his mug from the microwave and sprinkling in some burba, while she stared at her can in surprise then took another - slower - sip. 

"Don't suppose you had something to eat before you decided to drop in?" he asked in a lilting rhythm.

She smiled. "Kinda didn't."

"Good. My tastebuds are screaming." He swigged back his drink, closing his eyes in a momentary wave of bliss at the taste. Never imagined the day would come when this stuff could taste so good. Putting the mug down, he straightened up and cocked his head at her. "Espresso Pump? Can grab something to go." She toyed with her can some more, frowning, so he picked up his coat and dug a couple of notes out from a ledge. "I'm thinking spicy potato wedges or something. Vegan sushi. Whatever they have that's furthest from rabbit." He opened the door and held it, waiting. 

She put down her can and slipped over to join him. 

Alright then. 

  
  


When they got to the coffee house she slunk off to a dim back corner, so he ordered for her. Wedges, cookies, hot chocolate. Nutritional things… what'd you feed slayers for optimum health? 

He brought it all on a tray to the tucked-away table and plonked a bowl of salad-stuff before her.

She picked a piece of carrot off the top and waggled it at him. "This is rabbit food," she grinned, and maybe-almost giggled. 

"Not where we come from," he deadpanned, then stabbed a cookie into her bowl. 

She bit into the carrot and did the 'it's not rabbit' revelation, eyelashes fluttering down and cheeks lifting, and he shifted in his seat as a memory flashbulbed of her lying beneath him with a heightened version of the same look. It didn't fit here, with her shampoo-scented hair bundled up behind her head and starchy ruffles on her shoulders. Had to wonder suddenly if he couldn't have taken his time with the digging, lived in his dream a little longer, because she was not brighter for all the gloss and sparkle. Adjustment though, gotta let the tastes return, is all.

She demolished half the food, then picked up her hot chocolate and filled him in on the portal while he licked chilli sauce from the dip bowl. 

When she'd finished, he put the bowl down to say carefully, "Gotta tell you something about the witch." She leaned closer, face serious. "Night before Rabbitland, I hit her up at the Bronze. Was her that summoned our melodious demon."

"You're sure?" she asked. 

"Skipped straight past denial to threatening. Smarter man probably would've left town at the power coming off her."

Her worry lines deepened, then she perked up slightly and quirked a little grin. "You did, smart  _ ass _ ."

He snorted. Guess he had. Humour was temporary though as she dragged her hands across her face tiredly.

"What are we going to do about her?" she asked. 

_ We?  _ This was good.  _ What,  _ though; he didn't have a bleeding clue. And she was looking at him like she was hoping that ' _ we'  _ might become a ' _ you'. _

A second later she was retracting it again, focus shifting on her face as she hedged rhetorical thoughts about talking to Willow tonight and maybe trying Giles.

_ Give a bloke a bloody minute, Slayer.  _ "Leave the powwow for tonight," he told her. "She oughta be occupied enough with fussing over the portal. I'll put some feelers out and see if we can't come up with some sorta containment for her, because if she goes nuclear when you confront her you might not have a house left." 

"Okay…" she said slowly, mulling it over. "And I'll contact Giles. I know he has some witchy friends over there…." Pain flashed on her face and he had to bite back the scathing words he wanted to direct at that tosser.

"Asshole should never have left you like this," he said.  _ Crap. Try again.  _ "I'll bet he's still drawing a council salary too, sitting on his arse over there drinking tea while you - who does all the work for those sorry sods - are trying to sign yourself up for a second job to support your real one and worrying over telephone bills when you should be taking a break." He finally caught up with his tongue and snapped his mouth shut. 

He took a breath and let it out in a sigh; she only watched him.

"I know, not helpful," he said, flapping his hand in an apologetic gesture. "You're right, he might have contacts who could help. You talk to him, I'll find us something to stop her blowing her top catastrophically, least in the interim." 

She nodded, accepting. 

He walked her home, stopping at the gate. She looked back at him like she was going to say something, but he got in first. "Go on to bed, pet. Got things to sort out, don't I?" 

"You'll come back?" she asked. "I mean…"

"Catch you tomorrow," he told her. "You keep an eye on her in the meanwhile, yeah?" 

"I will," she said tightly. 

He left before he could change his mind; storm upstairs and grab the witch unawares from her bed. Supposed to be Buffy’s own safe space to return to, not this menacing threat from the inside. Space that selfsame witch had dragged her back to. Space of corners and triggers and too many empty chairs. 

  
  


** + **

 

She closed the door behind her quietly and leaned her forehead against it, senses reaching out for him as he went away. Everything was too abrupt, too fast, too uncertain; she longed for unchanging rocks and monochrome views, for a punishing landscape that let her be free. 

The house was abed and asleep, so she tiptoed to her bedroom and put herself in a bed too. Things creaked and rustled in the night air, and she watched her bedroom with wide eyes in the dark, pondering sweet little Willow and Sweet burning people; the feel of dancing, dancing in wild abandon until death was licking at her heels, until a demon grabbed her in his solid grip and said  _ stay!  _ while a man echoed with  _ I wish I could.  _ Reds of hair and reds of flames; reds of blood from little jars and broken noses. 

When morning came she stood and washed her face and made Dawn’s lunch; smiled at Willow and said  _ yes, have a good day, I'll see if the splodge is still there soon. _

Xander came for Dawn and  _ there _ was the look she hadn't been able to place, filled in now by context: Xander was ashamed, and Xander was afraid. 

Then everyone was gone and she was putting on her shoes and going to check the hazy splodge.

It was still there, and appeared unchanged (though Willow’s spell prevented her getting right up to it). She started back through the trees towards Spike’s crypt; there was something though, she'd proffered a task of her own to help solve this… she needed to call England. Quite why she'd been determined to do something herself immediately after deciding to hand it all to Spike, she wasn't certain. But it was something to do with the way he'd floundered, and covered, and was obviously flying blind as much as she; yet wouldn't let that knock him back. 

 

"You don't need to stay," she told Giles. "But you need to help Willow. Or send someone to."

"We can’t help her unless she wants help," Giles said in the gently apologetic tone of a negating expert. "We may be able to bind her magic, restrict her power, but that wouldn't do her any good in the long run. Have you spoken to her?" 

"No," she said, and didn't elaborate. 

"Alright," he said. "I'll contact the coven here and see what they can offer. She could certainly come and join them for a time."

"There's also the haze," she added, then realised he knew nothing of the last week. "There was a portal. Willow closed it, then it turned into a hazy spot. She's put some kind of fence around it for now."

Giles made noises of alarm and rebuke, and said he would see if someone from the coven could come and see what had gone wrong. His self-righteous chastisements were going to add to her long-distance phone bill.

"Do you still get a council wage?" she cut in. "I mean, the watchers  _ all  _ get paid, don't they?"

"Well, ah, yes, that is correct," he stammered. 

"So why don't I?" she asked. "If I'm supposed to be my own watcher now I should be getting paid as one."

"I… perhaps… I suppose that would be a possibility." He sounded uncomfortable. 

"Good. I have a job, Giles. Two jobs. I don't have anything left for another one."

"I'll see what I can do," he said. 

Hanging up, she checked the clock. Still morning. All missions accomplished. Dawn… was going to a friend's after school and staying the night there… she had okayed this; was it Friday? It was Friday. So, she could go tell Spike. 

When she entered the top level of the crypt he was nowhere to be seen; extending her senses out told her he probably wasn't downstairs either. She checked anyway, replacing the concrete slab behind her before continuing down the ladder. 

It was dark down there, so she moved slowly, guarding her toes against collisions with unexpected objects. He wasn't in his bed - she hadn't really expected him to be - but her blanket was, folded squarely on the foot of it. She opened an edge and slid inside it to wait for him.

  
  


** x **

 

He banged his way in through the sewer door and froze as the sound of someone breathing drifted underneath his racket. Sleeping breaths, he decided; dreaming, or disturbed by the banging, but still sleeping. He closed the door very quietly and padded over on silent feet to confirm: his bed had grown a slayer. 

He swept his hand through his over-long hair again, pondering. Yesterday he'd have slunk in beside her and slipped an arm around her waist, but that was yesterday, yesterworld; things were different here. What had Tara said this morning?  _ Don't push. Give her space.  _

Everyone was always asking her for something, whether they said the words or not. And he had been too, he saw now, tugging at her in frustration when she backpedalled from the moment she'd kissed him. He'd just been so  _ close,  _ he'd been sure then; the two of them on the verge of finding something to change everything. Hadn’t seen how very far she was, through his own lust-muddled love-addled brains. Had only seen that something had to change for her before she was gone again; had fought to get his claws in to hold her here, the fury of his desperation driving her back.

So where did all that leave him? Staring at a sleeping slayer and scratching his head, he supposed. In his space. In her blanket (assuming she still wanted it). In her space that he'd given her in his space, then. He lay down beside her carefully. 

He hadn’t jostled the bed, but she woke up anyway; that sixth sense of approaching vampire, probably. She swept her eyes over him, then lifted the edge of her blanket a little. He scooted in and put his arm across her gently and she pressed closer.

"Didn’t expect to find you here," he said, smiling. 

"Is it okay?" she asked quietly. 

_Is it okay?_ Daft chit. Unless that wasn't the question? "Yeah, pet. It is."

She ducked her head a little, in against his chest. 

Christ, she was here, seeking him out in the real world. Maybe seeking something from him he'd all but given up hoping she would. She was different in the blanket in the dark; sombre and uncannily vulnerable-seeming, as though truly naked inside it.

"Saw Tara this morning," he said after a bit. "Thought she might come along when you talk to the other one."

"What did she say?"

 

_ (- You're n-not really here about Willow, are you?  _

_ \- ...That too. _

_ \- You can't fix Buffy, Spike.  _

_ \- How do I help her, though?  _

_ \- Listen. Let her tell you. _

_ \- Know that. It's just… _

_ \- Hard. Scary. _

Yeah. _ ) _

 

"Doesn't want Willow thinking it's a chance to win her back. But she's personalising the shield for you. Can pick it up later on."

"Shield?"

"Some kinda magic magnet. Sucks in anything being cast in the area. Said she'd check out the haze spot too, case she can solve it."

"Dawn’s out until tomorrow. We should do it tonight."

"We?"

"Yep. If- if you're willing."

"Not scared of the witch, slayer," he snorted. "Don't think having yours truly on the inquisition team's likely to calm her down, is all."

"Maybe she needs a shakeup."

"Alright."

  
  


** + **

 

He was still floppy-haired in two shades, and she was glad. He was rabbit-Spike that she'd found in a distant land; hesitant and soft-pawed beneath his spines, where she now resided. She should ask questions, push him to state conscious decisions; was he a black bunny or a brown one? Would he bite if she poked him, and did she want him to? She could ignore, let the pattern continue. And she must not. She asked. 

"Are you going to eat people again?"

He did not bite; he hissed, a sharp little intake of breath through his teeth, and rolled away. She was made cold and pulled her blanket closer, nesting in bated breath and wordless wishes.

He let the hiss out soundlessly, only a current in the air. Licked his lips. "No, I don't think I am," he said.

"Will you come home with me?" she asked. 

He looked at her then, eyes searching hers for clarification. She held still, hoping he could find it and read it right, because she didn't know where it was. Only that this question was not supplementary but non-sequiturial.

"When?" he asked. 

She had to think then. There were things to do again, in the way, at odds. "Seven o'clock," she told him. "I'll pick up the… shield, and organise Xander to come." When was that? She'd not meant to fall asleep here, waiting. That which had been elusive in the night had stolen across her unawares, and now she had no guideposts. "It's not seven now, is it?"

"Still morning, pet. Time to go to sleep." 

Maybe that was it, nocturnal jet lag from the harsh-sunned world. Part of it. Maybe a small part. 

She tugged him back to her and felt his erection hard against her thigh, and wondered again about meek-rabbit-Spike and this dichotomy between the quiver in his skin and the silence of his mouth. She could not have fucked a soul into him; maybe she'd fucked hers away, and hence there was equality to blind her to the wrongness of this. It didn't feel that way though. These trickling thoughts were all too complex, so she brushed them aside to free him from his pants.

  
  
  
  



	9. Under Attack

 

 

** x **

 

He pinched her to wake her, confirming: no warning tingle through his brain. Couldn't be certain if 'rough in bed' translated to 'harming a human' in chip-speak, and kept expecting to find the damn thing working again either way; the cause of all this a temporary glitch in the system. So, pinch the sleeping tiger's tail just enough to jog her from sleep. 

"It's getting on," he said softly. "You'd better go collect our insurance if we're doing this today."

The tiger stretched, lithe and lean, then sat up slowly and began reshaping into a girl. 

"Seven o'clock?" she asked. 

"I'll be there," he promised.

  
  


He paused to listen at the back door; Buffy was telling Xander and Anya about Rabbitland. No Willow in earshot. Letting himself in, he found the three of them seated in the living room; Anya wide-eyed and appalled, Xander on edge in a different way. Xander looking for someone to direct the room’s attention at, too. Before the boy could open his idiot gob, Spike pulled out the hotel brochure and chucked it on the coffee table between them. "Still had this," he told Buffy. 

Xander picked it up, only for Anya to snatch it off him. "T'varow?" she asked. "Where did you get this?" 

"AKA Rabbitland," Buffy told her. "You know travel companies, big with the misrepresent."

"It's supposed to be five-star luxury," Anya said, frowning at the brochure. "I was going to ask Hallie to try to get us a booking there for the honeymoon. They don't have  _ any  _ bunnies or anything even remotely like them."

"That was then," Buffy sighed. 

"Where's the witch?" he asked before she could start on the self-chastisement again. 

"On her way," Buffy said.

"What do you want with Willow?" Xander asked, aggressive in his defensiveness. 

"What do I want with Willow…" Spike repeated with a humourless chuckle, stalking across the room to stand offside to Buffy’s chair. Had plenty of answers ready - none of which would go down well.

"I need to talk to her," Buffy cut in, an edge to her voice. "And, to you."

"Me?" Xander asked, disconcerted and grinning stiffly.

"Yes. Xander, I know you didn't summon Sweet." 

Xander tried to hold the confused grin; Buffy stared him down and he seemed to wither before her until he dropped his face into his hands. Spike settled back against the wall; he'd been on the receiving end of that cold and remote glare often enough to almost pity the boy now. 

"I wanted to tell you," Xander started, looking up. "It was never the right time… I didn't want to bring you another problem." Buffy’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly and the silent pressure continued. "I just-- what you sang--" Xander shook his head. "I felt responsible. So I put my hand up for what was going." 

Buffy huffed out a weary breath and closed her eyes. 

The front door opened in a jingle of keys. Buffy’s glare snapped across to the door as she rose to her feet; on the couch Xander looked down at his shoes while Anya was still frowning at the brochure. 

"What's going on?" Willow asked as she paused in the living room doorway. She looked from Buffy, to Xander, back to Buffy. Then past her to where Spike stood by the wall. “What have you been saying to her?” she demanded. He didn’t react. She seemed to catch herself and reined in the hostility. “Xander?” she asked plaintively, turning to him.

“Sweet. I told her it wasn’t me,” Xander said, still not looking at anyone.

“But that was--” She cut herself off.

“Last month?” Buffy asked. “Past the statute of limitations?" 

Willow’s cheeks flushed and she lifted her eyebrows beseechingly at Buffy, like a kid caught stealing cookies.    


Buffy flared with anger, her cold remoteness vanishing. "People  _ died,  _ Willow!" she shouted. 

Willow blanched. "I didn’t mean to! It was just an accident." 

"Seem to be a lot of those happening," Spike muttered. 

"I didn’t even realise what I’d done until we faced him… Then Xander said it was him, and you left, and it didn't seem worth mentioning, with everything else."

"What the hell were you trying to do?" Buffy asked.

Xander’s face twitched to Buffy then on to Willow; hadn't even thought to ask, looked like. 

"It was only a-- a revealing spell. I thought-- I wanted to make sure people were being honest with each other, about what they wanted. Before, you know, before things went too far."

"You wanted to split us up!" Anya said. "You hate that I'm marrying Xander, even though you don't want him!" 

Xander turned to her. "An, I'm sure that's not--"

"That’s exactly what it was!" Anya said, standing up. "She's jealous and vengeful, even D'Hoffryn said so!"

"Not split you up!" Willow said to Xander. "Only… make sure you knew what you were doing!" 

Xander’s face froze. He rose to stand beside Anya, a look of betrayal spreading as he faced Willow. "You couldn't have just spoken to me, Will?" 

"Course not," Spike drawled. "Not how you lot do things, is it? Gotta keep your unmentionables tucked away until they blow up in your faces."

"I thought I warned you to stay-- out of it," Willow said to him. The air was growing pressurised, electric; free-floating power building in the room.

Buffy slid over half a step, forcing Willow to face her before him. "Or what, Willow? What were you going to do if Spike kept getting in your way? Leaving him in Rabbitland must have been a convenient solution. What about when Xander finally got around to telling me? Chuck him in too? Let's have some of that honesty you're oh-so-keen on, before you wipe our minds to shove it back under the rug again."

"I wouldn't have hurt anyone!" Willow shouted, sounding anything but harmless. 

"But you _ have," _ Buffy said. "Spike's right, your idea of 'not hurting' seems to be hiding it away."

"All right," said Willow, "you want honesty? I think you're turning your back on us for  _ him _ because you can't let it go that we didn't realise where you would be. You shouldn't be punishing us for it! You're only hanging around him because you miss being dead too, and it'd be best for everyone if he would go away so you could forget and be happy."

"I'm not punishing you!" Buffy shouted. "I have been trying so damn hard to be what you all expect of me and I'm  _ sorry _ , Willow, if I'm not doing it well enough. I didn't even want you to know!" She paused for a second, considering, then continued in a steadier voice. "Yep, I am hanging around him because I miss being dead. It was safe, and soft, and warm, and somehow, he gives me that. I'm sleeping with Spike tonight, and I don't give a shit if you have a problem with it. I just want a proper night's sleep." 

Too many feelings smashed into him at once; increased anger at the witch, gratitude for whatever he'd managed to get right to let Buffy feel like that, amazement that she'd just told her nearest and dearest. Most of all, twisting pain at the fresh reminder of  _ why _ she needed him.

Willow and Xander stared, dumbstruck. Anya looked at her in mild puzzlement. 

"Yes, we're having sex too," Buffy told her. 

"No wonder you're looking better," Anya said, pleased. 

 

Everyone erupted. 

 

Xander turned on her saying something about 'evil dead', Anya snapped back, then they were shouting at each other, the others forgotten. 

Willow pointed at Spike and shouted, "Buffy, you can't! You're not thinking straight, you need to listen to us!"

Buffy hissed at her to drop her hand; the static in the room rose enough to prickle the hairs up the back of his neck. Willow’s finger shifted to Buffy and then he was pointing in return and shouting at her to  _ back off! _ as he pulled Buffy back beside him. 

" _ Silencio!"  _ Willow shouted, chopping her hand through the air. 

Something surged through the room like the lurch of an earthquake, setting the lumpy volcanic rock on the reading table shaking. Willow stared at it in shock as everyone recovered and shouted louder, Xander now trying to get everyone's attention. 

"You brought a  _ shieldstone?" _ Willow asked. 

"Looks like we needed it," Buffy said.

"You don't!" Willow said, and pointed at it. 

All the prickly energy in the room started swirling towards her, and he shoved Buffy to get her moving towards the couch and therefore away from the reading table. Willow had both her hands raised now, forming something between them and focused on the magic-absorbing rock as she chanted under her breath. Anya squeaked an oath and scrambled over the back of the couch, trying to pull Xander with her; Xander was still trying to get Willow’s attention. 

Buffy kicked one leg of the coffee table, flipping it upright on one end, and grabbed its leg to hold it between them, Willow, and the rock. Willow’s chanting hit a crescendo; Anya was still tugging at Xander and Slayer had her hands full bracing the table. He grabbed Xander’s leg and threw him over the couch at demon-girl, and pain exploded through his head and maybe the world.

"Chip," he told Buffy as soon as he could find the word, hands trying to hold his head together or perhaps tear the damn thing out. She had one hand on the shoulder of his coat, pinning him to her on the ground behind the table. 

"Why?" she asked, then shook the question aside, attention outwards. 

Something external had definitely exploded too; he squinted his eyes open further to see little bits of rock embedded in the wall. The frantic energy had vanished from the air, everyone stunned quiet.

"We're okay," Xander called from behind the couch.

Spike dropped one hand from his head to push himself off Buffy, and she twisted to peer out from the table. 

"Willow?" she asked. 

A pained little noise answered her. She released her grip on the table and looked back at him, questioning; he waved her concern off with the hand that wasn't engaged in holding his brains in. The air carried a hint of human blood alongside the gravelly burning smell of grinding rocks. 

"I'm alright," Willow said timidly as Buffy went to her. 

"That’s a shame," he grumbled as he stood and looked around. 

Most of the rock still sat on the table, presumably ready to keep doing its thing; the other quarter of it had flown into slivers now sticking out of walls, ceiling, the coffee table that had shielded them from the shield. Probably not a good idea to flop down on the couch either. 

Willow was sitting on the floor, wincing as she felt out a cut on her forehead that was starting to dribble blood down her face. Buffy stood over her, glaring daggers, then yanked Willow’s hand away to look for herself. He sighed and went to get the first aid kit. 

  
  


** + **

 

Willow had shrunk into herself, tears running down her face, but no one was ready to sympathise. Her forehead really needed a stitch or two; Buffy closed it with paper ones and taped a square of gauze over it for now. Xander picked up the coffee table and put it back in place, then started collecting the magazines off the floor. 

"Are you done with the attacking?" Buffy asked, unable to keep the sullen coldness from her voice. 

"I'm sorry," Willow whimpered. When Buffy kept waiting she added guiltily, "Yes. But I wasn't-- I'd never try to hurt you guys! I just…" She fell silent. 

"The table begs to differ," Spike said. 

"We should tie her up," Anya said. "Now, while she's worn out."

"Do we need to?" she asked Willow.

"No! I--" She bit her lip, looking at the table. "I think I've got a problem," she whispered. 

_ You're not the only one. _ Aloud she said, "A problem you're ready to look at?"

"Yes," said Willow meekly. 

Buffy sighed for what felt like the millionth time this week, and moved to sit cautiously on a chair. "This house can't handle much more," she said to no one in particular. "Willow, Giles said there's a coven over there that will take you in and help you, if you want to go."

"You're kicking me out?" Willow whispered. 

"No, Wills. But if you go now, you'll know you have somewhere to come back to."

Willow looked at Xander, picking up broken bits of a bowl from the floor. He set them on the coffee table then sat down on an unmarked edge of it, resting his arms on his knees. "Please, Willow," he said. "I need my friend back."

Something-- some _ one _ collided with the front door and started banging on it. 

"Buffy? Buffy!" shouted a voice that sounded like Tara's, had Tara ever been known to shout so forcefully. 

She rushed to the door, flicked a glance at Spike as he shadowed her, then opened it partway. 

"The portal," panted Tara, "rabbits are coming through it." She looked over her shoulder anxiously, pressing closer to the doorway. 

Buffy opened the door wider and she darted in as the others converged on the entranceway. 

"I went to see what was happening with it," Tara said to her, studiously ignoring Willow, "and there were holes there, in the air, then a-- a  _ pack _ of rabbits came at me. There must have been hundreds. I ran here."

"Good work," Buffy said quickly, her mind planning smoothly. This, she could handle. She turned to the living room, where Spike was already picking up the pair of swords from the mantelpiece. He held them both up; she nodded at the right-hand one and he tossed it to her. "Xander?" she said, brisk and firm. "You're driving. Drop us off, then circle the block and run over any you spot. Tara, can you do something about the holes?" 

"I-- maybe," she said nervously. "I'll try."

"I can help?" Willow offered quietly. 

"No," Buffy said. "You can stay here with Anya and ring Giles."

"They won't eat through the car, will they?" Anya asked. 

"...No," she said. "I mean, they could go for the tires after we jump out, but they shouldn't bother when there's people around."

Anya snatched Xander’s keys from his hand. "Good. I'm your driver."

Xander opened his mouth to argue. 

"Shut up," she told him. "You've never run anything over in your life. I've dreamed of this day." Her eyes gleamed with a vengeful malevolence that overpowered any fear she felt.

"Okay," Buffy said. "Xander-"

"Got it," he said, glancing at Willow. 

Buffy nodded, then led Spike, Tara and Anya to the car.

  
  
  
  



	10. Killing Things

 

 

 

** + **

 

The rabbits were a veritable pack, hundreds on the cemetery's lawn and starting to spill onto the footpath. Anya swerved in towards the curb, thumped over a pair that were beginning to cross the road, continued to the end of the street, then flung the car into some sort of swift U-turn involving the handbrake. Buffy grabbed for a handhold with a yelp; Spike looked casually impressed. 

"I'm not stopping," Anya shouted, "You can jump out when I slow at the gates."

"Make it very slow," Buffy said, fingering the hilt of her sword. 

On the third pass - with a few more rabbits down - the car finally slowed enough for her to judge it time to throw her door open and jump before Anya swerved again. Landing safe, she ran for the clear space inside the cemetery with Spike's feet close behind her as Anya’s tires screeched away.

Hundreds of pointy-eared heads lifted in their direction, twitchy noses questing forwards eagerly. In seconds most of the ones remaining on the footpath were surging back in through the gates as a river of rabbits began to flow towards them across the lawn. Spike backed off to give them both ample sword-swinging room, and then the first wave broke against them in a flurry of leaping fur and disturbing screams. 

The rabbits were thinner, hungrier, moving with less grace and more desperate determination than they had in Rabbitland. Her sword sliced through several on each swing, and as the bodies fell some of the later arrivals targeted those instead, scuffling and snapping in a chaotic heap of fur and blood and flying chunks. Spike ranged around her in quick circles, carving through them by the dozen as they threw themselves blindly towards the more-edible slayer; before long she was able to ignore those still coming to concentrate on culling the ones squabbling near her feet. 

By the time the torrent slowed, the bodies were piled several deep in a wide circle around her, and both herself and Spike were sticky with tiny sprays of blood. Trying to find places to step between them, she moved through the fallen bunnies and dealt with those merely wounded while Spike picked off the final few arrivals in ones and twos. The last one she found lay gasping with a twisted spine, its eyes pained and panicked as it watched her approach helplessly. 

"I'm sorry," she told it, a lump forming in her throat. Its tongue flicked out, small and pink, trying feebly to lick its fuzzy upper lip where blood bubbled from its nostrils. She winced as she decapitated it, squashing down the pain in her throat. 

Spike moved up beside her, head tilted and face concerned. 

She gave him a sad smile and waved at the massacred rabbits. "It's not their fault," she whispered by way of explanation.

"Not yours either," he said with quiet vehemence. 

She looked out across the cemetery. "We need to search the whole block. At least. And see what's going on at the portal."

"Portal first," he said. "Gotta turn off the tap before we mop up."

That made sense. Hopefully the rabbits hadn't spread out too far already; from the bare patches of lawn and shrubs stripped down to sticks it looked as though they'd fallen straight to eating anything in sight as soon as they got here. As she made her way up the hill with Spike, they found further bodies here and there on the path, half-eaten by their half-starved comrades and some still being nibbled at. She felt a tiny pang with each bunny they culled now, and silent apologies began dripping from her lips to fall like corrosive pebbles through the grass. 

" _ Stop it," _ Spike hissed at her after the next one. Then something seemed to snap, and he grabbed her roughly by the shoulders to shout at her, "Stop bloody punishing yourself!"

She shoved him and he staggered back. "I'm wrong!" she shouted, her voice breaking. "I'm all wrong, Spike. I'm not supposed to be here, and they're not supposed to be here, and neither of us are okay." Something seemed to drain away with the words, leaving her sticky and dejected and worn out.

A rabbit loped up to the one she'd just killed and started snuffling at it. Spike lifted his sword, then dropped it back to his side tiredly, watching as the rabbit ate.

"Buffy, none of us are okay," he sighed. "None of us are bloody what or where we should be. Can't go back. Well, I suppose you can." He scuffed at the path with one foot and muttered, "Will, sooner or later." She shifted her weight uncomfortably. "I can't…" he trailed off and waved at the rabbit. "I don't bloody know. Can't make this place right for you." He looked up at her sadly, eyes shining wetly. "Can only kill these poor buggers, and try to make something of where we are." 

This was it, she realised; this was what her life was right now. Euthanising rabbits before they ate her, and the town, and each other. Then going home to finish fighting with her friends. 

Or, she could fall upon her sword, let the rabbits eat her, and let everyone else finish the argument without her. 

She didn't really want to be eaten by rabbits. Or by her teary-eyed vampire. She'd told everyone she was sleeping with him, not offering her neck; that's what some of the fight would be about. She wanted to take him and her blanket and crawl into bed and stop him being teary-eyed. 

She hefted her sword and swung, killing the rabbit with grim efficiency. "Guess we should get on with making sure it doesn't get any worse then," she grumbled. 

"Yeah," he said, smiling a little. He offered her a hand; she shook her head slightly and led the way towards the forest. 

  
  


The haze patch hadn’t changed - the space around it had, a series of ten or more small holes in mid-air that looked onto various snippets of yellow sand and rocks. In some of them the ground was less than a foot away, at a ninety-degree angle to their own world's flat plane. As they looked on a rabbit appeared in - under- whatever - one of these, stood on its hind legs, then tumbled through. Spike swept his sword almost lazily through the air, and it hit the ground dead.

"Crap," she said. "We'd better get Tara up here."

  
  


%

 

"I don't get it," Anya said, allowing the car to drift to a stop near the gates. "I expected to feel extremely gratified. I only feel indifferent. And slightly tetchy."

"Y-you're a great driver," Tara said nervously, releasing her death grip on the handhold. 

Anya shrugged lightly; it wasn't something she'd really done since becoming human, but it looked like the skills she'd gained while masquerading as a stunt driver in the 1970's had stayed with her. "I did a few stints on movie sets," she said. "People are always betraying each other with their castmates."

Tara nodded. "Why do they scare you?" she asked. "Bunnies."

"Did you miss out on the part where they're eating people? Apocalypsing whole dimensions with their sharp little teeth and ravenous bellies…." Her words faded away; Tara was looking at her with a gentle sincerity that was disturbing and unnatural, as though she genuinely wished to hear how Anya felt on the subject. 

Turning her strange face away to gaze out of the windscreen, Tara said, "I'm scared of centipedes. My brother - Donny - told me that they climb in your nose when you're sleeping then live in your brain until you die. That's why old people forget things - the centipede eats them."

"That is both hideous and clearly false. Only certain parasitic worm species are capable of habitation inside a living human brain."

"I know - well, not about the worms-"

"What happens to the centipede?" Anya interjected. 

"Umm.. he said when a person dies, it crawls out of their mouth and hides until it can find a new host."

"Huh," said Anya. Though the story was undeniably false, there was a pleasing simplicity to its sensible explanation and lack of any apparent moral lesson. 

"Even though I know it's not true, I still can't touch centipedes. They make my skin crawl." She fell silent, still gazing away.

" _ Oh," _ said Anya. "This is one of those things where you share a relatable experience in order to encourage the other person to talk about their own, isn't it?"

"You don't have to explain," Tara said. "It's alright if you don’t want to, I don't need to know why. Or if you don't have an explanation. Sometimes things are just scary."

Anya looked out at the bunnies flattened on the road and footpath - sixteen in total, she thought, every single one that had shown its face within range before Buffy’s pied piper act had mustered them all back inside the cemetery. "I don't know," she said, because Tara had said that it was okay not to. "I never used to be frightened of them. I bred them for pets, when I was human." Tara was looking at her again now, surprised. "Then I became a vengeance demon, and the next time I saw one, it upset me. It must be a demon thing. 

Tara looked away again. "You're not a demon anymore," she said mildly. "Perhaps you don't need to be afraid of them. Or, um, not the normal herbivorous kind. And I'm sure Buffy and Spike will take care of these ones in no time."

"You're right," Anya said. "I'm going to go and poke one." Before she could change her mind, she put on the handbrake, opened her door, and climbed out. There was one a few yards away, and with a quick glance around she walked over to it. 

It was only a little mound of flattened fur and feet with gore smeared across the tarmac around it. She heard Tara's door open and looked back; the witch was watching the other direction. Anya crouched down. One of the rabbit's ears was clean and unmarked; she touched it carefully with a finger. It felt velvety and slightly warm; pleasant, actually. After stroking it a few times she stood up and walked back to the car, sitting down and switching off the engine as she looked back down the road through her open door.

Tara sat down too. "W-was it okay?" she asked. 

"It was just a rabbit," Anya said. "And it's dead." Everything was quiet now, Buffy and Spike vanished into the cemetery, no lights in the nearest houses, the engine ticking softly as it cooled. "So it won't be ruining my wedding." Again she felt the gap where satisfaction should be, anxious disappointment replacing it. 

"Anya, if you're worried about the wedding, you should talk to Xander."

"Of course I'm worried about the wedding. Women are supposed to worry about their weddings. And do you have any idea how many I've been called to at work? Some months it was just church after _church_ after _church_. Men are always running off at the last minute, or declaring their love for someone else, or having affairs with the bridesmaids. At least Buffy is unavailable now." 

"Sh-she is?" 

"Yes. She's been having sexy times with Spike. She told us earlier."

"Oh."

"I think it’s about time she took some initiative in cheering herself up. They should be very compatible. Her calling was never going to enable her to obtain sexual fulfilment with a mortal. Demon/human relationships are never sufficient, even for half breeds like them."

"Buffy’s not a demon…" Tara said, but seemed to lose certainty in the words as she spoke them.

"Of course she is. I don't know how you can all be so hypocritical and hung up on it." A movement in the cemetery caught her eye; Buffy was jogging back towards them, no bunnies in sight. "Here she is."

  
  


** x **

 

Tara looked at the holes in the air and winced painfully, then lifted her hands and hovered them before the hazy patch in between. Buffy tried to appear patient, but he could see the flicker of muscles in her shin that showed she was tapping her foot inside her shoes. Another rabbit appeared below one of the holes and she flipped her sword over to prod at it with the hilt, spooking it back. 

Finally, Tara stepped back and exhaled slowly before turning to them. "I think I know what she's done."

"Can you fix it?" Buffy asked. 

"I think I could mend the surface," she said. "I don't know how permanent it would be. But the time displacement is going to crumble it in faster and faster if we don't do something now. She's… crushed the door frame into the doorway, sort of, and now the walls all around it are falling."

"Giles was going to send someone from the coven in Devon to look at it," Buffy said. "Can you, like, duct tape over it until then?"

Tara opened her mouth, then closed it again and swallowed. "I'll try," she said. She placed her palms against the haze spot and began rubbing at the middle of it, humming a soothing rhythm. The surface of it seemed to move slowly, a ripple rising in front of her fingers which she kneaded bit by bit towards the edge. "I think so," she said softly. "It'll take time." 

"Give me your sword," Anya said to Buffy. "I'll cover her while you guys check the rest of here."

"Sure you can handle it?" he asked, handing his over. Demon-girl was oddly calm for the situation now, almost introspective. 

"Of course," she said, matter-of-fact.

Buffy nodded, cast a last wistful glance at the holes, then headed into the trees to start searching for stragglers. 

  
  


Two hours later the cemetery and adjacent streets were pronounced rabbit-free, the combination of his nose and her allure proving highly effective for locating even the best-hidden bunnies. Traipsing back to the others, they found Tara smiling tiredly as she smoothed the last corner of haze over a final hole and stepped back. Buffy cocked her head at the empty air.

“The original portal’s still there, functioning as normal again,” Tara said apologetically. “I can’t remove it. But give me a minute and I’ll put a barrier around it so that no one - no rabbits - can throw themselves at it before the expert arrives.” 

“That’s wonderful,” Buffy said. “Thank you, Tara.” 

Tara nodded shyly, then raised her palms again to make the barrier. By the time she had finished, her hands were trembling with fatigue; Anya handed back his sword to offer her an arm to the car.

The drive back was subdued, everyone tired or thinking private thoughts. Anya pulled over at the curb, and Buffy frowned at the lit windows of her home for a long moment before reaching for the car door. On impulse he brushed his fingers down her back as she opened it; pausing, she lowered her hand to his knee briefly as if drawing him near. Then she stepped from the car and lifted her chin stoically at the house bearing her closest friends. 

  
  


** + **

 

They entered quietly to find Xander waiting in the dining room with a mug in his hands. "Willow's asleep," he murmured, flicking his eyes at the ceiling as he stood. "Did it go okay?" 

"Yep," Buffy answered, crossing slowly to a chair opposite Xander. She stopped with her hands on the back of it and watched him, guarded. "Rabbits killed, portal band-aided until an expert arrives." She turned back to where Tara loitered in the doorway. "Do you want… a drink, or something? Ice cream?" 

"No," she said. "I should be getting home." She looked up at Xander. "H-how is she? Anya told me what happened."

"I don't know," he said. "There were more tears. Apologies. Said she wants the coven's help, if they can do anything, which she doubts. Then she crashed. Oh, and Giles rang. He's flying over tomorrow afternoon." He skipped his eyes past Spike, lingered on Anya's still-subdued face, then lifted them to Buffy. "What's happening to us?" he asked with quiet entreaty. "This is…" He pressed his lips together, then shook himself and rose, swinging his cup. "Show me where you keep the tea towels?" he asked, in the least subtle request to talk to her alone.

When they entered the kitchen, he picked up a tea towel from the rail and started absent-mindedly drying his dirty mug, before realising what he was doing and putting the mug in the sink. She held out her hand and he passed her the teatowel, both avoiding eye contact. 

"Are you…" he started when the silence began to stretch uncomfortably. "You going to be alright here tonight? I could drop the others off and come back." He shrugged one shoulder and grinned. "You know, in case you need someone to use as a human sandbag."

"I've got a sword," she said, smiling slightly. "Hiding isn't really my style."

"Have you got a stake?" he asked, joking gone.

_ Here we go. _ "I don't need one," she said, deadly serious. Exasperated, she waved back at the dining room. "Christ, Xander, he went down after shoving you behind the couch a few hours ago. Probably still has a headache."  _ And we need to work out what the heck is going on with that. _

"That’s not what I'm worried about. You're not--" 

_ thinking straight?  _ Anger roared through her head, and presumably her eyes - he cut himself off and raised his hands in placation.

"You're not  _ in a good place _ . There's other ways he could hurt you, Buffy."

"He won't," she said with an air of finality. 

"I hope not," Xander said, unconvinced but resigned. 

She dropped the tea towel on the bench and followed him to the lounge. Anya and Tara were waiting; everyone said goodbye weakly, and then the three of them were gone.

  
  
  
  
  



	11. Falling Water

 

 

 

** x **

 

Buffy closed the door behind them and stood listening as Xander’s car drove away, then folded her arms in and rubbed at them, shrinking slightly and staring into the middle distance. 

"I'll put the kettle on," he said, drifting out of the dining room. 

She looked up, attention refocusing slowly. "There's blood in the fridge, if that's better?" she said, and led the way to the kitchen. 

She waved him to a seat, then filled a mug and put it in the microwave, standing close to watch it spin. 

"Hot chocolate?" he suggested.

She shook her head, then stopped. "I can make you one, if you wanted?"

"Blood's fine," he said, his voice coming out husky. God, she looked so tired. And bloodstained, and covered in bits of fur. A heavenly creature left broken-winged and cat-mangled on the doormat. 

She took the mug out and passed it to him, then covered her mouth to yawn. "Sorry," she said afterwards. "Think I need to make with the sleep."

"Thinking you might want to shower first," he said, lifting his eyebrows at her.

She looked down at herself and frowned, and then her eyes travelled over to where blood flecks showed on the bare skin of his arms. "Same to you." 

He drained his mug and put it in the sink, then took her hand and led her upstairs. She trailed along, uncharacteristically docile, until they reached the landing, then stopped and looked towards Willow’s door. 

"I should check up on her," she whispered, concerned. 

He lifted his free hand for quiet and listened closely. "Sound asleep," he whispered back.  _ How the complacent sleep at night. _

Buffy nodded and followed again, and he took her into the bathroom. 

He turned the light on as he entered, but she squinted away from the mass of bright whiteness; he flicked it off again and felt her hand relax. Considered the tub; water would turn pink as soon as they got in, so he turned the shower on instead. He held his hand under it waiting until it warmed, then thought of the fire of her skin and turned it higher to match. 

She leaned back against the vanity, waiting, arms folded around herself again and face pale in the moonlight filtering through the window. Distant, somehow; all of two feet that felt like two worlds away. Then she turned to him and was nearer again. 

She took off her clothes and dropped them in a pile on the floor; he did the same, watching her for cues and weighing the taste of the silence. Stepping into the tub, she sat down and scooted up against the end of it, making him space. He sat facing her and the water pattered down, loud on his head and humid in his lungs, trickling and running and washing the cold blood away. 

He beckoned her nearer, fingers guiding her around lightly until she pressed her back to his chest. She hugged her knees to herself, so he wrapped his arms around all of her, the hard-edged little ball of her. Lips to her ear, he murmured, "What do you want?"

"Nothing," she said in a whisper. 

"Tell me what to do for you," he insisted, rising tone rinsing away some of the spell of the muting darkness. 

"Is this atonement?" she answered mildly. "Is that what you're trying to do?" 

Denial rose, but he paused, sifting through feelings. "Some," he admitted grudgingly. 

"You're not supposed to feel guilt," she said, sounding saddened by it.

"Not good at doing what I'm supposed to," he grumbled. "Buffy, I-"

"Shh," she said. " _ Stop it. _ I don't want to be your punishment for what happened on that tower. And I don't want to make you be mine. It- this isn't our faults. Or Willow’s."

Wanted to argue the addendum; wanted to argue his own failings. But didn't dare risk this fragile acceptance of her own blamelessness. Maybe if her excessive (and undeserved) forgiveness were encouraged it could encompass herself too. "This isn't punishment," he said instead, pressing her tighter against him. Well, not the flavour of punishment that watching her hurting from across the room was.

"What do  _ you  _ want, Spike? One of us should be happy."

"Christ, woman, I just want to love you."  _ Please.  _ He took a breath and let it out in a sigh, reining in the exasperation. "Want to make it… softer for you, if I can. 'm not trying to earn anything."

"Why?"

_ Why am I not trying to earn anything? Why do I want to help you? Why love you?  _ "When you smile - when it's not for anyone but yourself, and you probably don't even realise you're doing it - the whole world tilts, and everything glows. Think it could blind me sometimes. And when you don't, when it's all hidden deep away, I see the ember of that glow in there, and I want to shelter it. So it can keep you warm until you smile again."

She pushed free of his arms and slid around to face him, knees still tucked in. "You see it?" she asked quietly, eyes peering up at him with a haunting shadow of hope.

"Oh, luv," he murmured, a raw ache burning through his chest. "Can  _ feel _ it. It's right there, waiting to shine out again."

She sniffed, blinking hard, then shook in a breath that turned into a gulp. His arms moved of their own accord to gather her to him; then she was clinging on, crushing her face against the burning in his chest and tucked into his lap as she started crying. Her arms pressed him in tighter, desperation in them, so he squeezed her in return, stronger than any human could handle, and she broke into a keening sobbing that shuddered right through her in unrestrained grief. He wanted to murmur to her, comfort her somehow, but nothing was going to work past the lump in his throat, so he pressed his cheek to the top of her head to cover more of her and rocked them softly, his own tears trickling down to blend with hers in the water. 

Eventually she cried herself down to a whimper, then her breath began catching up and smoothing out at last. When she fell quiet and her grip on him slackened towards sleep, he pushed her up gently to sit and reached up to turn off the water. He snagged the edge of a towel and pulled it in to wrap around her, then pulled her to her feet with him and took her to bed, kicking himself for failing to bring her blanket. 

  
  


** + **

 

Buffy awoke squished against the solid planes of Spike’s chest, his arms still holding her to him tightly as he slept. They were still naked, somehow more conspicuous now than when he'd bundled her into bed and hushed her to sleep. He'd made a sound as she'd drifted off - something felt, more than audible; the rumble of thunder faded by distance, only steady and rhythmic. It had sunk into her tired body somehow and eased everything into slumber. 

Her throat was all dry and scritchy, as if the disturbing sound that had come from it in the night had abraded it somehow, and she hated to imagine what her eyes looked like. She'd felt like she'd shattered into a million pieces, everything cracking apart as something too big to wrestle back wrenched its way forth from her. She'd clung to him with a horrible, desperate need, embarrassing now; yet somehow he'd filled it, holding all the shards of her in place while that thing tore its way out of her.

She edged back enough to see his face; he frowned slightly and tried to pull her back in before blinking awake. As soon as he did, she dropped her eyes, brain scrabbling for a flippant comment to brush off the events of last night; she had nothing. "Sorry about the sobfest," she said instead. 

"Wasn't quite what I pictured when I fantasised about having a lapful of naked slayer," he mumbled, arms loosening to stroke his palm down her back gently. "How're you feeling?" he asked quietly. 

"Better-" She'd been going to add,  _ than last night,  _ but no, it was more than that. Something had lifted slightly since yesterday, cried out and washed away perhaps. It was probably going to sink back down on her any moment, but right now… "Better," she said again. "Spike, what you said about not being able to make it right for me," he listened, eyes growing sad, "you- you do make it better."

"Yeah?" he breathed, the sadness melting away into something shy and hopeful. 

"Yeah. Not about to burst into so--  _ whistling,  _ but… I feel like maybe one day I could."

He pulled her back against him, kissing the top of her head. "Good," he said, his voice all husky, and she worried he'd gone teary-eyed again. Xander had it backwards - she could hurt him so much. Had, at times. But somehow he was still so strong, stronger than her sharp edges. Some long-lost flicker of warmth stirred in her stomach, prickling like pins and needles and urging her to snuggle around him and be soft.

  
  


Something creaked downstairs, and she rolled over reluctantly to look at the windows; it had to be late morning, at least. "I'd better go see how Willow is," she said. 

"No," Spike said, pulling her back and burying his face in her neck. 

"Yes," she insisted, wriggling deeper under the covers.

"Alright then," he sighed, and let her go.

She felt around the floor for her towel from last night, then slid from the side of the bed into it, skin shrinking away from the clammy fabric. She told it to toughen up; nakedness in the middle of her bedroom in the morning light was  _ not _ happening. Spike stretched out languidly, blankets sliding down to his hips in a way that just had to be calculated; she tore her traitorous eyes away before they could convince her to slip back into bed and investigate this 'naked in the morning light' thing more thoroughly. He chuckled to himself as she darted to the closet, and she felt her cheeks flush. 

"Do you want a coffee?" she asked, scrabbling for a pattern to fit to this situation. Did he even drink coffee? Did she have tea? There was blood left, she knew. And herbal teas in various boxes. What did her vampire drink for breakfast - at bedtime - if not rabbits? And what kind of cracked joke did she live in, anyway. She ought to buy some Count Chocula--

"I'll make it," he said, halting her inner ramble as he sat up and pulled his jeans from the pile of their clothes on the floor. "You'll have one?"

"Yep. Milk and-"

"Two sugars, I know," he said, smirking at her.

_ How would he even find that out? _ "Yeah," she said, cheeks flushing again. God, what was wrong with her this morning? "I'll um, go find Willow," she said quickly, and left.

  
  


Willow was in the living room, staring at the couch with her arms folded. She jumped and looked up as Buffy came down the stairs, then waved her hand at it anxiously. "I was just-- there's bits of rock stuck in it. I pulled some out, but then there were holes," -she pointed to one in an armrest, coir stuffing protruding from it- "and I didn't know if you'd want me to magic them away, in case it grows tentacles or something… I'm really sorry." 

Buffy stopped next to her, looking down at the couch. She hated it, she suddenly realised; the way it was lurking there every time she walked in the door, the cold ghost of the mother it had stolen from her hiding in its cushions. "Open the front door," she told Willow firmly, then shoved the coffee table back and started pushing the couch towards the entrance. 

Willow scrambled to the door and swung it open, her face concerned. "What are you doing with it?" she asked; Buffy ignored her and moved to the other end of the couch to lift it to go over the doorstep. Spike appeared on the stairs, face curious as he stepped down to the bottom.

"Want a hand with that?" he asked mildly.

"I've got it," she grunted, finally gaining a reliable grip to lift the whole thing up and back out the front door with it. 

"That you do," he agreed, and disappeared towards the kitchen. 

She carried the big stupid lumpy couch around the house and into the backyard, Willow scampering behind her with a cushion that had fallen off at the stairs. In the middle of the lawn Buffy flumped it down; Willow replaced the cushion then looked at her and started to ask something, but she was already stomping over to where Spike stood watching from the back door. 

"Lighter. Gimme," she said, a hand out.

He passed over his zippo casually. 

She lit it at the torn armrest, and then on two of the cushions before she had to back away from the rapidly growing flames and cloud of bitter black smoke. Willow had retreated to the safety of the porch; as the smoke spread she ducked past Spike into the house, and Buffy backed away to the top step.

When the fire had flashed through the surface fabric to start on the coir and wood below, the smoke changed to a thinner greyish colour and lost its toxic stink. She folded her arms and watched it devour the ugly evil couch, blazing black and red in the middle of the sunny green lawn.

  
  


** x **

 

"Do you think I should go to her?" Willow asked beside him, then bit her lip in realisation of who she was talking to. 

He answered anyway. "No. She's okay."

Willow watched for a moment longer, then slunk off to the living room, the vacuum cleaner starting up soon after. 

Buffy stood watching until the couch had been reduced to a pile of burning timber framing, motionless and steady with the blaze casting a literal golden glow on her. Then she turned away, handing him his lighter as she stepped inside and leaned against the kitchen wall. 

After reboiling the kettle, he passed her a cup of coffee, and she cupped her hands around it as she sat at the breakfast bar and watched her fire. 

"Think I'm a bad influence on you," he said lightly, taking a seat.

"No way. I'm multiple buildings ahead of you in the arson stakes around here." She almost-smiled and added, " _ Poser _ ."

"Hey!" he shot back, glaring at her in false wounded pride. 

She did smile then, small and simpering and cheeky, before hiding it in a sip of coffee. 

The vacuum cleaner switched off, and she put down her coffee, drawing back to face the less-burnable problem. Fire was still smouldering though; perhaps they could chuck the witch on? He thought about suggesting this, before deciding it probably wasn't the best tack. 

"Must be time for me to shove off," he said. "Less you want me to stick around…?" He nodded towards the living room. 

Buffy shook her head. "I need to talk to her alone. And make some calls. You don't have to leave, though. Or… you could come back?" Her voice turned up at the end, as if the daft thing actually thought there was a scenario possible where he might not. 

"Be back tonight," he said, standing. And stopping as the sunny yard jogged back into awareness. "Couldn't lend us a blanket?" 

She looked like she was almost going to argue, then huffed and went to the linen closet. "Only if you bring my fluffy one back in one piece." 

"Course."

"Where are you bolting to?" she asked as he slid on his coat and pulled the blanket over his head.

"Manhole, just past the back fence."

She nodded. "I'll go and open it."

  
  



	12. Finding Things

 

 

 

** x **

 

At dusk he crossed the backyard again, hesitating on the porch as the sound of additional voices rolled out from the dining room. Watcher-  _ ex- _ watcher, rather, and someone… Welsh, perhaps? Oddly spoken, as if matching syllables in each sentence. Must be the visiting witch. 

As he stood there listening, the door eased half open silently, and a little Buffy-hand beckoned him nearer. " _ Not you,"  _ she whispered, blocking the doorway with her hands out,  _ "gimme the blanket." _

He held his bundle out in offering; she snatched it inside, then swung the door almost closed and whispered through the crack, " _ wait right there." _ Then she vanished, moving with absolute silence while the voices in the other room murmured away without pause. Moments later she was back, sticking something to the fridge before sliding out of the door unburdened. She turned the door handle slowly to mute the click of it closing, then took his hand and padded silently across the deck and down to the lawn. He matched her step for step, bemused, yet eager, for there was a reckless charge in the air that tingled with the promise of excitement. Once they'd passed the burnt remains of the couch she dropped his hand and burst into a run, bolting from yard and block and street as he raced her, chased her, flew headlong and heedless to wherever she led.

Too soon she slowed and glanced back, almost as if expecting them to be following her, to have a hope of catching her. Or not too soon, as she reclaimed his hand and kept moving, chest rising and blood pumping with the exertion. They turned off into a cemetery; Greenwood, he thought, though fuck if he really knew, because there was nothing beyond her running hot and eager alongside him. 

She looked over at him and dipped her head - apology, or perhaps thanks; it fell on him as benediction, and he stumbled as it rippled through him. Her hand in his turned to steel before he could think about falling over, and she  _ grinned _ , for a lightning-flash moment unthinking and unburdened, and he wanted to walk on his hands and pull stupid faces to see if she’d grin some more. 

They were interrupted then, a group of young vampires having the audacity to come jostling towards them with their fangs out and jibes yapping. She slid a pair of stakes from her waistband and passed one to him;  _ oh yes, this was patrolling _ , this was why they were out running, hunted, hunting in the dark. 

He tore into them in a sudden explosion of battle-lust, body singing with the rush of unfettered violence and absolute fearlessness. Beside him, she fought like a wild thing, one caged and constrained too long before finally ripping free, savagery and righteousness blazing from her as she swung and kicked and staked with a speed her attackers could barely track, let alone dodge. That this could be the self-same creature who had curled broken in his lap last night should be impossible, yet this was the heart of her too, another brilliant facet tilted before his sight.

He fell back to watch for escapees, feeling she needed this more than he tonight; when the last vamp did make a break for it she was after it like a hare, launching herself through the air in a dive that ended with her rolling smoothly to her feet in a cloud of dust.

"Nine," she said, chin tilted. 

"One," he called back. "But I let you have them."

"Thank you. Very gentlemanly." She smiled, sparkling at him, and for a moment, all was bright and beautiful. 

Then the smile faded from her eyes as everything caught up after all and why hadn't he kept them running further, stupid git, but still, it was okay, because they would run more and hunt more and: if she could smile like that for that moment, then she could do so again, and he would chase a smile up somewhere, and maybe she wanted to as well. And they did.

  
  


"We'd better get back," she said, several cemeteries later. "I think I've caught up for the last week."

He snickered, shaking dust from his coat. "That you have. Got guests too, don't you?"

"Yep," she grimaced. "Hannah, from the London Circle. I'm not… see what you think."

He nodded. 

"She fixed the portal straight off the plane. They fly out tomorrow night," she added, trying to hide her disappointment. 

"Luv-"

"Don't," she snapped, shaking her head. A block later, she said, "Dawn’s in LA until tomorrow night."

He almost stopped walking. "She's what?" 

Buffy shrugged. "Janice's family are going to some art festival thing. They invited her along this morning."

LA was a big place, he supposed. A giant forehead could only take up so much of it. "Where are they staying?" he had to ask. 

She quirked a knowing grin. " _ Far _ from anyone we know. A hotel with a  _ pool _ and a  _ gym _ and many more big city luxuries. She was really excited…." Her voice trailed off into something… perhaps more wistful than guilty. He hoped. Would have to see what he could dig up beyond the borders of Sunnydale for her to do with her sis; would do her good to get out and put a smile on Dawn’s face. Maybe not LA though. 

At the edge of her yard, her grip loosened; he slid his hand from hers with reluctant acceptance. Ought to be glad she was bringing along at all, but he could never stop himself hungering for more, for a tag proclaiming him hers on the leash she held. 

She wound her fingers together as if her hands had become awkwardly extraneous objects, then held them fixed at her sides. At the door she stopped, and half turned to him, face lowered. "It's not- he's leaving tomorrow. I don't-"

"Got it," he said. "Not a word from me." 

She remained paused a moment longer, then turned back to the house. 

  
  


** + **

 

Giles stood in the kitchen, a row of mugs before him on the bench. "Drink?" he asked. She shook her head; Spike gave him a cocky _no thanks,_ which Giles ignored after doing a double take at his hair. "She's meditating with Willow now," he told her, indicating to the living room. "They won't be long." Buffy nodded. 

The kettle boiled, and Giles turned to pouring it with an eagerness that only highlighted the uncomfortable atmosphere. Then chairs scraped in the living room, and they followed him in there. Buffy took a seat at the end of the table, not quite willing to throw in on either side; Spike flopped into one of the armchairs and did the lurky thing.

Willow looked even smaller than she had when Buffy left an hour ago; she briefly considered the possibility that Hannah had actually shrunk her to a more manageable size for the flight back. Candles and crystals had replaced the shieldstone, to enable Hannah to assess Willow's magic;  _ it's in the letterbox,  _ Giles told her,  _ and very effective, apparently.  _ Hannah agreed enthusiastically and complimented her for her choice; Buffy paused before passing the compliment on to Spike, hoping she wasn't poking the dragon between him and Willow. 

Tea was sipped, and Hannah ran over her recommendation; Willow to leave with them tomorrow to be inducted into the coven as a trainee, from where she could work her way up.  _ You’ll be very happy there.  _ Words sifted around in Hannah's odd phrasing,  _ power  _ and  _ testing _ and  _ blending; power  _ and  _ council _ and  _ so much potential.  _ An upnote of eagerness coloured her words - the zeal of a recruiting salesperson. No one said anything about coming back. 

Willow’s reticence grew until she looked ready to crawl under the table. Eventually, Buffy cut in to ask Giles, "Where are you staying?" 

"The, ah, Sunnydale Motor Inn, I think," he said. "Since I gather your couch is unavailable."

"Yeah," she said. "It had an accident this morning. You know how those homewares can be once they hit the teen years."

"Yes. Well. It's getting late," he observed, taking the hint. "We'd better be going." He and Hannah collected their things, then she saw them out the door. 

Returning to the living room, she found the others unmoved. She went for neutral ground again (or was she referee?), leaning back against the wall by the fireplace and crossing her arms. 

Spike looked over at Willow and asked, "You drinking the kool-aid?"

"You got that too?" Buffy asked.

"Well,  _ yeah, _ " he said, as though it should be obvious. She guessed it was. "Miss palindrome didn't come over here for Willow, per se." 

"Was it the 'council' word or 'power'?" she replied. 

"Think it was putting them in the same sentence," he said. 

She looked at Willow, still sitting behind the table as if waiting to be sentenced. "Well?" she asked. 

“Giles wants me to go,” she said in a tiny voice Buffy that hadn’t heard for a long time.

“What do  _ you _ want, Wills?” she asked.

“I want to be someone you-- you’re not disgusted by,” Willow said, eyes flooding. “I don’t know how it happened, Buffy. Everyone was so lost without you, then I brought you back, and everything got worse. Xander was ditching us for Anya, and Giles left, and you want to leave, and Spike was going to take you away. Then Tara-- I drove her away. And Xander. And you. I just wanted us all to be happy again.” She sniffed; Buffy watched impassively. “But I ruined everything. It wasn’t even the magic. It was me. I thought if I kept trying I could make it all better and make up for everything. I’m so sorry. I should be the one to leave. It's what I deserve."

"Is it - is learning to use all that power - what you want? You heard what she said about potential."

"The magic doesn’t matter. I just want my friends back together. If that means without me… I'll go."

"Could you give it up?” Buffy asked. “You can’t wave a wand and make anything better. But can you stop making it worse?”

Willow looked down at the table. “Yes. It’s not worth it. It wouldn’t help, though. I wouldn’t be able to be any help.”

Buffy closed her eyes for a second, inwardly cursing the fact that none of Willow’s fuck ups had simply deleted the last year from existence. “When you're not messing with magic, you're a huge help," she sighed, facing Willow again. "Someone told me yesterday, all we can do is try to make something of what we have. That kinda sounds like good advice. And I…" she paused, feeling out the validity of her words, "I don’t want to leave." She licked her lips and swallowed, feeling Spike's gaze burning into her. "So, what do you want to do?" she asked Willow again. 

"I want to stay," Willow said in that same tiny voice. "I don't- god, I don't want them to 'fix' me," -her face flushed, and she winced in realisation. "I don’t want them to fix me if it means I won't be your Willow-friend. If you're willing to have an unmagical Willow-friend, then I want to try."

"I don’t want to lose you too, Will,” she said, an ache building up in her chest. “I  _ can't _ lose anyone else." She glanced at Spike, uncharacteristically silent. He was watching her speculatively, looking like he'd forgotten Willow was even in the room. “ _ Anyone _ ,” she said to Willow. “Spike-- he helps.”

Willow looked at him anxiously; Buffy clenched her teeth ready to intervene. Spike cocked one eyebrow at Willow in a look of dubious evaluation, and slowly stretched his legs out obnoxiously to take up more room.

“I’m sorry,” Willow said to him, sounding embarrassed. “I-- Just, I’m sorry. For yesterday. And for being slow on the whole portal-solving. I, um, thought she'd staked you, at first."

_ You  _ _ what _ _?  _ Buffy bit her tongue.

"And everything else," Willow mumbled. 

Spike shrugged, face relaxing instantly. “Long as you stop bagging on me for the whole drunken-bottle-in-face, then we’re evens."

"And for trying to bite me," Willow added.

"That’s a compliment, that is," Spike said. "'Sides, no harm no foul. So. When're you going to tell rupee?" he asked Buffy. 

"He said they'd be over after breakfast. I need to ask him if he's had an answer about paying me a watcher's salary, so we'd better do that first."

Spike looked surprised; she tried to smirk at him.  _ That's right.  _

"Hannah's going to be pissed," he said idly. 

She shrugged, suddenly uncaring what stupid Hannah from the stupid council thought. "Too bad. We'll bring the rock back in, and I'll hit her with it if she tries anything."

  
  


After digging through the fridge for dinner leftovers, she rang Xander to update him and (hopefully) rally the troops for the morning;  _ Giles' witch is evil. She's not getting our Willow.  _

" _ Evil  _ evil?" asked Xander. 

"Not really," she said with a pout. "I don't think. Anyway, they're coming after breakfast, and I thought-"

"I'll be there."

She retrieved the stone from the letterbox and tried to find the most artistic side to display it as a table centrepiece. Maybe they could find some pebbles to put around it or something. One of those sand garden things.

Upstairs Willow banged around, refusing Buffy’s help beyond delivering a couple of boxes from the basement. Finally, the thumping ended, and Willow dragged two boxes full of books and herbs and crystals onto the landing. Buffy handed her a mug of cocoa - she needed to suss out which teas counted as non-magical - then carried the boxes down to sit by the front door. 

Willow watched from her bedroom doorway with her face set determinedly, hugging the mug close to her. "Tara might want some of it," she said quietly. 

"Do you want me to ask her?" Buffy said. 

Willow nodded, her expression twisting as she tried to hold it steady. "I'm going to-- go to bed," she stammered, waving Buffy’s concern off. 

"Will, if you need me, I'm here," she said.

"I know. And, thank you," Willow said, a tentative smile appearing.

Back downstairs, Buffy picked up the phone again and rang Tara, passing on Hannah's compliments for the portal band-aiding. Tara agreed to collect the magic paraphernalia, then asked what time they expected everyone in the morning, promising to be over earlier. 

Spike prowled up behind her as she hung up, hands sliding around her to hook his thumbs into the waistband of her pants and pull her against him. 

"Don't distract me," she murmured, as his breath tickled the side of her neck. "We've still got to talk about the chip." She hadn't wanted to, uncomfortable with the part of her hoping yesterday had been some strange aberration caused by all the magic flying about. 

Spike sighed, hands abandoning their sinuous gliding to rest stationary on her hips. "Chip's still working. Stopped at Willy's on the way over and gave him a prod, then a couple of drunk humans too. Went about how I'd expect were it not for our wee scuffle."

"Then…" Her stomach clenched up in anticipation, and she pulled herself away from him. "Hit me," she demanded. He started to refuse; she squared off and glared at him. "Do whatever you did to Willy."

He glared back, jaw set mutinously. She didn't budge. He sniffed in a breath, then tapped her on the shoulder with a soft fist, unflinching.

"You knew that wouldn't activate it," she said quietly. It should have. "Hit me properly."

His glare vanished into a despairing plea; she tilted a cheek to him stubbornly, waiting. This time he did cringe, a pained anticipation that didn't look to be for his head. He hit her hard and fast, a solid jab that snapped her head to the side and made her shift her balance, then stood there watching her.

"So it's just me," she said flatly, things crashing around inside of her.

"Figure it finally realised you're a little more than human," he said. 

"No." It all made sense now. "I'm not me at all. God, no wonder I feel so wrong." She slumped back against the hallway wall, crossing her arms again. 

"Don't be daft," he said. "Can smell how human you are. Got something extra, is all."

"It's since I came back, isn't it?" she sighed. "Something got left behind." Some missing piece that had made this hollowness inside of her. Did she even have a soul? How would she know if she didn't? Spike certainly didn’t, and he was beating her consistently in the loving stakes. Or maybe he did, maybe Willow had cursed him when no one was looking, and that was why he was so un-evil lately. But she wasn’t evil, or she didn’t want to be. And Spike wasn't living on rats in the gutter. 

"Think it's longer," he said. "Been trying to remember when the last time was you set it off, and it was a damn sight before the tower. Reckon it's your power growing, is all. You've got stronger, you know you have. Hell, I could have taken you when we met."

"No you couldn't," she replied automatically. 

He shrugged. "Would have had more chance, at least. I couldn't even  _ lift _ that hammer you walloped Glory with." He sounded proud; she looked up to find him smiling at her admiringly. "Tara's coming round tomorrow, yeah? Can ask her to have a look at you if you're worried." He moved up against her, caging her against the wall to talk in a heated murmur, "But I know what you are, Slayer. You're the girl strong enough to save the world, and stupidly loving enough to forgive your mates when they make you have to. Now, let me take you to bed."

His words swished through all the things crashing around inside of her until only the last sentence floated on top. "Okay," she said. It was pointless trying to argue against herself to him lately. Better to take him to bed and let him make her forget words even existed. There was always tomorrow. 

  
  
  



	13. A Tea Party

 

 

 

** + **

 

Tara arrived first, her soft knock on the door catching Buffy’s ear while she filled the kettle for morning coffee. With everyone else still in bed, Buffy answered the door, thoughts leaping back to last night's hallway conversation. "I wanted to ask you about something," she said. "If you've got a minute?"

"Of course," Tara said, smiling that preternaturally reassuring smile.

Buffy led her to the kitchen, busying herself with making the perfect cups of coffee before suddenly blurting it out, "I'm scared I left something behind." Tara looked at her coffee, confused.  _ Be specific.  _ "In heaven. I don't feel right, and Spike's chip doesn’t recognise me. Can you-- can you see if I have a soul?"

"Of course you've got a soul," Tara said, without a moment's hesitation. "I can feel it."

"Oh." Tara could never lie so smoothly, but the confirmation didn't clarify anything. "Then what's missing? Why can't I?" 

"D-do you want me to-- to have a look at you? At your aura?" 

Buffy nodded, afraid now of what she might find. Tara pulled out the stool next to her own for her, and she sat down cautiously as Tara spun to face her. 

"It won't hurt," Tara said, lifting her hands slowly. 

_ Won't it? _ She nodded again. 

Tara’s eyes drifted closed and her hands moved around, stroking the air while Buffy held herself tense and still. A minute later Tara pulled her hands away and opened her eyes calmly; Buffy released a breath she didn’t know she was holding. 

“There’s nothing missing,” Tara said. “You’re all there. Only…”

_ Only? Here it comes. _

“Your… surface arrangement, the way your human aura and your slayer power mix… they’re more blended now, than when we met. Like they’ve been emulsified, so that they can mix together more at the edges. That’s probably enough to confuse Spike’s chip. And your slayerness is more vibrant somehow, stronger.”

“Oh,” she said again. “What… what does that mean?”

“It means you’re fine, Buffy. Everything that makes you, you, is still there. You’re going through a rough time right now. It takes time to start feeling more yourself after something like this.”

“That’s what Spike keeps saying,” she said ruefully.

“Spike can be pretty smart,” Tara smiled. “And Buffy, he cares about you a lot. If that's-- if you want to be with him, the others will come round." She blushed and dropped her face to her coffee. "Anya told me what happened the other night."

"Yeah," she grimaced. "Xander’s worried." No doubt there'd be another tense conversation when he arrived, and she'd feel wrong-footed in her defence again. "I feel like I'm using him," she whispered. "Spike. He… I feel better with him. But I can't feel for him the way he does for me. Hell, I can't feel properly for anyone at the moment. I've tried to tell him… he loves me too much." 

"Do you care about him?" Tara asked gently. 

  
  


** x **

 

He held his breath and strained his ears further, the adage about eavesdroppers never hearing anything good springing to mind. Didn’t count as eavesdropping, surely, if he hadn't moved from the bedroom where she'd left him?

Buffy took a moment to answer - long enough for him to wonder if she'd opted to shake her head rather than remind Tara that he was an evil, soulless thing, and therefore dodge the question - then in a steady voice that dared anyone to try to defy her (as if the little witch would), she said, "Yes. Very much."

Well. 

Tara said something, but it slipped past the cyclone in his head.  _ Yes. Very much _ . Enough to admit it to Tara. Enough that she was  _ still _ worrying over her inability to love him in return, silly thing. 

He bounced up, driven to jump downstairs and kiss her soundly. Eyed his bare feet, shirtless chest - had been toying with the idea of wandering in half-dressed, sleep-rumpled and smirking once the boy arrived, childish masculine posturing over the territory of Buffy. Felt ashamed of that thought now; crude and disrespectful. Which was all kinds of wrong; crude and disrespectful was his modus operandi, dammit. 

He put on his shirt and scanned the dresser for something to tame his ridiculous hair with, then thumped down the stairs as their conversation turned to the foreign visitors and Buffy’s take-charge voice came out.

  
  


Xander and Anya arrived, the former ignoring him with an air of distraction while the later bubbled with a restless energy he couldn’t pin down. Buffy went to chase up Willow, who blushed and stammered and dodged at finding Tara still in the kitchen. 

"I thought-- If you wanted," Tara said, "I could stay when Mr Giles comes."

"You'd do that?" Willow asked. "Buffy told you I'm turning them down, right?"

"Yes. I thought you might need a friend. Another friend," she added, glancing around. 

Willow swallowed. "I'd like that."

  
  


** + **

 

Without quite acknowledging why it was so, when the knock came Willow took a seat on one side of the dining table, Xander and Tara flanked her, Anya squashed in next to Xander, and Spike claimed the far end next to Tara. She led Giles and Hannah in, then sat down at the head of the table, leaving the pair to sit themselves awkwardly on the empty side.

She paused, looking down the table at them all, and something welled up inside her; an echo of her own words.  _ I am not alone. There's trees in my desert, and I sleep on a bed of fur. _

Giles opened his mouth, but she got in first. "Has the council organised my salary yet? 'Cause you know, I've got bills."

Giles hedged, mentioning timelines for meetings and decisions needing to be deliberated on. To Buffy’s surprise, and before she could stamp her foot and tell him to hurry them up, Anya leaned forward and laid into him with a flurry of sharp complaints about  _ this ridiculous system that didn't even support their most valuable employee to feed herself _ . Or, as Buffy thought it over, maybe she shouldn't have been so surprised. 

"My colleague Leah would be happy to help you," Anya said at the end, turning to Buffy. "Her speciality is employer disputes. You could wish for every dollar they own, and ownership of them as slaves."

Buffy smiled, pretending to consider it. "Tell them they've got a week," she said to Giles. "Pay me fairly and without problems, and I won't have reason to  _ wish  _ for anything more."

"Yes, yes, well," he replied, "I'll do my best to hurry them along."

"Good. Next topic. Willow’s not going with you." 

"I'm sorry?" 

"Willow. Isn't. Going. I know I asked you to come and help her, but this isn't the help she needs."

Giles took off his glasses, saying, "Buffy, please-" as Hannah sat up with, "I assure you I am most qualified in these matters-"

"What else can you offer?" Buffy asked over them. "Is there any kind of local support?"

Hannah fell quiet at that; Giles shook his head. "Not that I'm aware of. Buffy, you need to consider the threat-"

"I have, Giles. And the answer's no. She doesn't want to go, so you're not taking her."

He pursed his lips, then sat back, relenting. Looking at Willow for the first time, he asked, "Perhaps some email contact with the twelve step program in London?"

"I'd like that," Willow agreed. 

Buffy nodded.  _ That was… easy. Maybe this is that 'standing alone' he was on about.  _ Except, she wasn't alone. She stifled the grin that wanted to leap out to Spike at the opposite end of the table; from the gleam that flashed through his fakely bored expression, she knew he'd caught it anyway. 

Hannah tightened her expression, haughty disapproval in every line of her face. Buffy had a sudden urge to act like the errant child she was being considered as and poke her tongue out in the woman's face. Better to wait though, in case there would still be a chance to hit her with that rock. She had a pun lined up and everything. 

"I must say," Hannah said to Willow, "I don’t see how you could possibly think you can solve this problem on your own."

"She's not on her own," Xander said, and everyone shifted an inch closer in unconscious support. 

"I did wonder if you could help with something else," Willow said timidly. "We have this friend - well, sort-of friend - who turned herself into a rat and hasn't been able to change back."

"Of- of course," said Hannah, surprised out of her nasty-face. "When did this happen? And how?"

Willow looked at Buffy for confirmation as she spoke, "...three? Three years ago. She's a witch."

"Three  _ years  _ ago?!" the woman squealed. "Do you have any idea what that can do to a person? Rupert, did you know about this?"

Giles waved his glasses, trying to explain; she brushed him away angrily and requested to see the rat immediately, rising to her feet. 

Amy was fetched, and Buffy removed the shieldstone to the letterbox again to enable Hannah to work. The odd phrasing returned to Hannah's voice as she examined Amy from all sides and attempted to question her. Ten minutes later, she announced the task too great for her to safely accomplish alone, and Amy's cage was packed up to fly back to England with them. Shortly afterwards the three of them left, Hannah bustling Giles out with a torrent of  _ how could you be so negligent  _ and  _ a human child, man! _

Just before Buffy closed the door, Hannah held up a hand and paused her tirade to look back and say, "If you change your mind, get in touch." Buffy nodded and shut the door. 

  
  


When she returned to the table everyone had sprung apart, interpersonal tensions reemerging now that the external danger had passed. 

"Think I'll put the kettle on," Spike declared, slapping the table before vacating it and the room entirely. 

"This is what the tea is for!" she exclaimed to the others in sudden realisation. "I'll bet British people don't even like it, and they just pretend they do so they can excuse themselves from tense situations without being  _ unmannerly. _ " Xander, at least, gave her a grin and a snap of laughter - probably largely for the idea of Spike being concerned about manners, but she knew he'd have forced a laugh regardless. She smiled at him, suddenly grateful for his indefatigable attempts to lighten the mood. And for Anya’s unthinking attack on Giles. And for Tara’s stolid support, even after what Willow had done. And for Willow, Willow-tree, who was staying here with her because she wanted to and would be okay somehow. And before she could get to Spike and his tea-making, she was shaking herself to stave off a flood of ridiculous tears.

"Right," she said, sniffing firmly. "Now what? What can we do to show you're not alone in this?" 

"I was thinking," Willow said, "before-" she stumbled, looking ashamed. "Before I did the memory spell. Xander said we should have weekly dinners. Or movie nights. To help Buffy. I, um, I think maybe that was a good idea. Can we- could we still do that?" She looked at Xander, then Buffy. "I could cook. I'd like to try and do something, if I can. For all of us." 

She was going to regret this later, she thought. When this odd mood of gratefulness for her trees wore off. Too bad; it sounded perfect right now. "I'd like that," she said. 

"Tomorrow night!" blurted Anya. "We'll be here at… five?" she checked with Xander, "Five. We'll bring the entertainment."

Xander looked suddenly nervous, though she couldn’t think why. Hopefully it wasn’t over whatever had leapt to Anya’s mind for 'entertainment'.

"Dawn will be here then," she said quickly; Xander’s expression didn't change, so it couldn’t be anything too risqué. 

"Great!" said Willow, pinning enthusiasm to the idea. "I'll make… I don’t know. But I'll think of something!"

"Pizza," said Xander. "You make great frozen pizza, Will." Whatever had unnerved him faded into a fond daydream of Willow’s frozen pizza skills.

"Tara," Buffy said, eyeing the way she'd edged back. "If you're free… I mean, we'd love you to come too."

"I don’t…" She started shaking her head apologetically. 

"Or next time," Willow said quickly. "You're Buffy’s friend too. You’re all of our friend. Friends. Ours. It can be friend night."

"I'm bringing my friend," Buffy said, steeling herself. 

"Your orgasm friend?" Anya asked. 

"Spike."

"That’s what I said. Good, he can pick up the drinks. Xander, go and give him some money."

Xander jerked upright, to object, or complain, or something; Anya looked at him steadily, and he sighed. With a face like a condemned man, Xander dragged himself to his feet and slumped towards the kitchen, pulling out his wallet. 

Okay, she  _ really  _ needed to find out what was up with him. But at least it seemed to be working in her favour today. "Five onwards," she said to Tara. "Stop in and… have a drink, I guess." Her eyes drifted to the kitchen door, but the voices stayed low and calm.

"I'll think about it," Tara said.

Buffy called her a cab to transport Willow’s boxes of paraphernalia, and Anya left to do something at work. Xander and Willow went upstairs to move the shelf that had held Amy's cage, with an air of seeking privacy.

In the kitchen she found Spike sitting at the island, paging through _ Better Homes and Gardens  _ with a mug of blood. "Still waiting for my tea," she said, sliding onto a stool beside him.

He twitched, a look of apology crossing his face before he caught himself.  _ Too easy. _

"Make one then," he said with a sniff, turning a page slowly. 

" _ 'Charming Pergolas for the new Millennium',"  _ she read out. "Mom wanted the lacy one."

"Fretwork, pet."

"The ' _ fretwork'  _ one," she rolled her eyes lightly. "Only, white, with-"

"Sky-blue trim," he finished softly. 

"Yeah." She smiled at it sadly, pale lavender and lemon in the magazine.  _ Seriously, where does he get this stuff?  _ "So, you'll come tomorrow?" she asked, suddenly uncertain. "Sorry to volunteer you."

He tilted his head, appraising her. "Yeah. Reckon I will."

"Good."

  
  
  



	14. Fluffy

 

 

 

 

 

**+**

 

True to word, Spike arrived at five on the dot, barreling in the back door in the blanket she'd lent him. Dropping the blanket, he shook himself like a wet dog before greeting her and Willow nonchalantly and handing her two bottles of- _champagne?_ She lifted her eyebrows at him.

"It's what he asked for," Spike shrugged.

O-kay, pizza and champagne it was then. Maybe Xander'd been promoted or something. She put them in the fridge and returned to her seat at the island.

Willow busied herself with checking the preheating oven, while Buffy cast around for a new topic of conversation; she doubted Willow would want to continue the current one in front of Spike. Before she could come up with one though Willow carried on, albeit in a shyer tone, filling him in contextually with, "I went to an AA meeting last night." There was a note of nervous - but defiant - pride in her voice.

"Yeah?" Spike said cautiously.

"Yea-huh. Xander suggested it. I mean, I'm not an alcoholic, but it's the only twelve step program in town and he thought it might be helpful to have a physical meeting to go to. So we went."

"There's one at Willy's too," Spike said.

"There is?" Buffy asked in surprise.

"Yeah. Thursday nights. Run by a gyrantor with a ceiling wax addiction. Only has one other attendee so far, but he's trying to drum up more."

"Seriously?" Buffy asked again. He looked at her with mild disappointment; no, she realised, he wouldn't joke about this. She lifted her eyebrows and nodded pensively. "Learn something new every day."

"Should go along," Spike told Willow. "They'd be glad to have another member, and they're decent enough sorts."

"Maybe I will," Willow said. "Anyway, I was just telling Buffy, it was good last night. I always thought AA was some religious cultish thing, but it's not at all. It's just people coming together with a shared experience, and supporting each other on their journeys. Even though they were talking about alcohol - but some of them weren't really - anyway, I got it, you know? They've all… lost control of themselves. Hurt people they care about. And the guy who runs it, he's been clean for twenty years by following the steps. It's all stuff about admitting what you're powerless over, and really looking at yourself. I think- Xander gave me the book, I'm going to read it. Oh, and I got this cool keyring!" She dug it from her pocket and held it up, a white plastic dog tag with ' _Welcome'_ and the AA logo on it. Then she deflated, shoving it back in her pocket quickly. "I just made it sound like a cult, didn't I?"

"No, Willow," Buffy said, standing up. "I'm really proud of you." She held her hands out, and Willow dove in for a hug.

"Thank you," Willow told her.

Buffy nodded and let her go, smiling. She still felt like she was faking it, but it was getting easier to do. "Xander drop any clues about what was up with him yesterday?" she asked, sitting down and slapping Spike’s hand away from the chip bowl in order to grab a handful.

"Not really. I think he's just worried about the wedding though. They started making a list for the invitations… you might have to bridesmaid from the aisle with a sword in each hand to keep everyone apart."

"Oh. Well, I could get pretty new ones. Clean, shiny ones, with flowers on the hilts, so we can pretend they're props. Duel purpose." She finished her chips and told Spike, "I have news too."

"Yeah?" he said, smiling.

"Yep. Giles rang before you got here. Wanna go stare through the windows of the furniture store later and help me choose a new couch?"

"Wanker's are paying you?"

"Yep! Full watcher's salary, and a separate one for the slayage." It sounded like a fantastical amount, the two month's back pay enough to clear her bills _and_ buy a decent couch.

"That’s wonderful, luv." He brushed a hand down her arm, before awareness of the other person in the room pulled it back to his lap. She reached over and settled her hand on top of his, squeezing it, and his face lit up even further. It was so easy to make him smile like that, she was finding, and it pleased her anew every time.

"I still can't believe _Jonathan_ was involved with the museum theft," Willow said, emptying another pack of chips into a bowl (and pretending not to notice the hand-holding).

'Pretending not to notice' seemed to be the agreed response to her and Spike; she didn't know if everyone was hoping it was a patch of temporary insanity that would go away if they didn't acknowledge it, or if they were too drained by their own problems to have one with her, or if they were starting to realise that he was good for her and that it was none of their business who she dated. Okay, probably not the last one. But perhaps they'd get there when the phase carried on.

"I know," she answered. "I thought he'd learnt his lesson on the whole power trip last time. We should have kept tabs on him. And Warren. Anyone that makes a-" she froze, then rushed on, "anyone with that kind of skill. They're holding them here until court on Friday, so I might go down and see if I can talk to Jonathan, and that other one. Tucker's brother. Something tells me there was some advantage-taking going on."

"Still acted on their own free will, slayer," Spike said. They'd bickered over the moral complexities of it for the entire wait for the police last night, her trying to explain why humans couldn't be dealt with by slaying, him pointing out that these ones had come close to slaying plenty and surely that waived their _special_ status. Finally, she'd stamped her foot and said _it's just the way it is_ , and they'd both pouted, immovable, until the police arrived to take the trio away unharmed.

Dawn’s elephant feet thudded down the stairs, then she swept in and started complaining that they hadn't called her when they opened the chips, giving Spike a look that said _can you believe what I have to put up with?_ Dawn, at least, was wholeheartedly on board the including-Spike train. The doorbell rang before she finished complaining, and she shot off again to answer it.

Her trademarked ear piercing-squeal of excitement shrieked out a second later, followed by a shout of, "Get your butts out here!"

In the entranceway they found Xander holding Anya in a princess carry, and for a split-second her mind leapt to searching for blood and broken bones. But no, Anya was beaming, Xander was beaming, (Dawn was squealing), and Anya was wearing a white dress and displaying her ringed hand. Then Willow was squealing too and hugging them both.

Xander stepped inside and lowered Anya to her feet, and everyone started talking at once.

"I'm sorry we didn't invite you," Xander said, blushing but unable to smother his smile. "We didn't want anyone thinking we were playing favourites. But I hoped…" he trailed off, suddenly looking worried he'd committed an unpardonable offence. "You might celebrate with us?" he asked hopefully.

"You dirty sneak," Willow said, grinning. "Of course we will."

Over the next half hour and the first bottle of champagne, they got the story straightened out: when Anya had heard Willow was staying she'd blurted out her fears for the wedding, and Xander had ranted about his own, ending with a wish that they could just get on with being together without The Wedding hanging over them. Anya said they could as soon as they got the damn thing over with; Xander joked that they should just save their money and all this worrying by nipping down to the registry office and getting it over with. Anya perked up her ears, told him to call in sick on Monday, and closed the Magic Box that lunchtime ' _for a personal affair'._ She'd bought the white swing dress off the rack at April Fools, shoved Xander into a clean button-down shirt, and they'd been married at the courthouse three hours ago with the couple in line behind them as witnesses. They were late because they'd wanted to consummate it several times before showing the world, and there was this thing--

"Got the picture," Buffy interjected, indicating to Dawn.

Once the initial excitement wore off, Xander remembered himself and shot a few jabs at Spike, conveniently forgetting his surrender of the day before. Spike ignored him entirely each time, turning to say something lightly to her or Dawn. After the second time, she tensed to stand up and say something to Xander; Spike pushed her hand back down and told her to stay out of it. Xander eventually got the message and gave up.

Tara arrived as the pizza came out, apologised for not knowing to bring the newlyweds a gift, and was convinced to stay long enough to eat with them.

Buffy felt like she ought to be making a speech, or someone should; instead, they threw on the wedding-themed movie Anya had brought and scoured the house for enough cushions to sit on. When the credits rolled and everyone stood up, stretching, it hit her that for the entire movie, her thoughts hadn't moved beyond what was happening on screen and in this room. It felt good.

  


 

 

**Epilogue**

 

She was waiting in the kitchen for him when he arrived for patrol, and her eyes immediately narrowed onto the way he held his hand curled into his duster pocket.

"What've you done?" she asked, sounding concerned, and put down her cup to stand up.

He held out his other hand, halting her approach. "Bought you something. _Won_ you something," he amended, before she could ask. "Dunno if you're going to like it…" He sucked in his lip. _Just bloody get it over with._ "She don't bite, so don't you do any either until you've had a proper look." Before he could second-guess himself further, he scooped it out and deposited it on the island.

It was furry, but it wasn't fierce. It had a twitchy nose, but he'd yet to see it hop anywhere. Seemed more intent on sitting in place and hoping not to be eaten. Its ears hung down on either side, splaying out across the countertop as it pressed itself flat, and its fur was a creamy caramel colour shading to a pale belly.

"It's a rabbit," she said, confused.

"Sorta."

"Sorta?" she asked quickly. "Demon?"

"No," he said quickly. "Just, it's a little one, ain't it? A kit. And the regular vegetarian kind." She was still looking wary, so he stepped forward to pick it up again. "I can get rid of it, just thought-"

"No!" she snapped, stepping between them slayer-fast and shielding it with her hands. "No," she said again, relaxing. She picked it up carefully and cradled it to her chest with one hand, the other stroking one of those absurdly long floppy ears. "Where did you get it? Her?" she asked, talking in a funny soft high voice he'd never heard from her, and eyes firmly on the rabbit.

"Her. Someone had her down at Willy's. Got their kittens mixed up. Supposed to be litter box trained already."

"We've got one in the basement," she murmured distractedly. She sat down carefully and lowered the rabbit to her lap, murmuring to it softly as she stroked it. Supposed he'd better go find the litter box then.

When he came back bearing it she looked up at last, and the rabbit did too, little nose sniffing cautiously. "Thank you, Spike," she said. "I love her."

"No worries," he whispered, the look of tender affection in her eyes stealing his voice again. Christ, how he loved her.

"Considering last month, we'd better set her up in our room until we've warned everyone," she said as he drifted over and squatted by her lap to inspect the bunny again. "It's lucky Anya’s not particularly bothered by them anymore."

"Yeah. Who could be scared of this wee thing, anyway?" he asked, and crap, his voice did that weird extra-soft thing too, and not just for the slayer.

 

  


 

 


End file.
